Fade Into You
by Shortstacked
Summary: Madeline wants a life of her own, away from her father and her history. What she doesn't know when she moves into Baker Street is that Sherlock and John will be her undoing, and it will be made worse when someone dangerous finds out who she really is. (This is actually a crossover with Iron Man/Avengers, but Sherlock is where the main story takes place)
1. Prologue

**Fade Into You**

**Rating:** R (There are lighthearted moments, but much like real life there are dark moments laced into this work-consider this your warning).

**The Disclaimer:**

This work is entirely fiction (obviously). I'm writing this due to a slight incline of boredom in my everyday life-and this idea just won't leave me alone. It has an original character, if you don't like that leave. Not only that but this is a Sherlock fanfiction that is laced with Iron Man/The Avengers (at points) so if you don't like that-you should probably skedaddle too. I will warn of this, I'm not going to sit here inserting my character into every single case Sherlock has been on-I've read those fanfics, and while some of them are really great-it's boring to read the same case over and over again with slight fluctuation. There will be moments of course where things from the show collide with this work, but it won't be the base.

**The Notes:**

As of this first chapter I'm not quite sure where in the Sherlock series this will begin, but assume there are spoilers for every season currently aired. This more than likely takes place around the middle of season one. Assume that my character being inserted will change the course/outcome of anything after the first season.

As for Iron Man, this takes place after the second movie but before the Avengers-and we're also assuming that Iron Man 1 and 2 have a wider gap than a couple of years. Also be aware that it won't be heavily played into this fanfiction until later chapters, we won't be dealing with aliens falling from the sky or Gods running around everywhere much in this fanfiction.

Questions or comments, feel free to ask. I'm simply doing this to get it out of my head and posting it for whatever reason.

**Last Note:**

My Character creation is modeled after Karen Gillan.

* * *

**Prologue**: London Calling

He made her late. Of course he did, there was the first good-bye last night, followed by a good-bye this morning, and then yet another. He was guilt tripping her to stay, which ironically was one of the reasons she knew that the choice she made was the best one. After all, she was twenty five years old, she didn't need to be living at home anymore. Pink converse slammed against the linoleum of the terminal, she already went through security (thankfully with no extra and awkward pat down) and now she was headed towards her gate. He offered to fly her privately, but no-she was changing her entire person hood-even leaving her real name behind. She wanted this to be all her.

Except for the fact he did help her secure an apartment in London, which is where she choose to live after throwing a dart at a wall map (actually that was her third choice, the first dart hit a tiny village in Africa and the second was Utah). She was grateful for that of course, when it came to her and his guilt over the missed years he would seemingly do anything. The one thing she needed though was to have her own life for awhile, not attached to his name or her history.

Which is why her passport as she handed it over to be stamped had her labeled as Madeline O'Brien instead of her true name. It was another easy process for her dad to help her with, begrudgingly, but he had to admit it would be safer for her out in the world this way. That and a few other safety precautions were how they had come to terms with her leaving home. Home wasn't bad, it just wasn't life-and she lusted after life.

Her heart was beating a mile a minute as she boarded the plane with only seconds to spare. It was a fairly crowded flight leaving New York, but she expected that. Finding her seat and jamming her carry on in the overhead, she carefully balanced her black over sized purse on her arm while she tried to make it to her window seat without falling in anyones lap. She sat, breathed in deep, and smiled-finally.

Madeline was the product of a short but torrid love affair between her mother when she was involved in the Californian party scene and a slightly younger man who teetered between overly cocky and roguishly charming. Growing up she didn't know that her mother was a partier, she didn't know that her mother had been from a well off family (whose wealth crashed in one of the fickle moments of the economy), but most importantly she didn't know the man she thought was her father-wasn't. She was the spitting image of her mother, and never really questioned why she didn't look like her father; a preacher from the south. They had met when her mother was struggling to find a life for herself and her newborn daughter. Too young to remember, Madeline just always knew that her mother was wonderful and her Father...well, she just knew to listen to him.

It was easy to think about the past on plane rides, she could never concentrate enough on any books she brought to read, nor could she just shut her brain off long enough to get lost in music blaring from her headphones. There were times after the truth was out and she was with her real dad that while on plane rides she would end up crying at some point, it came naturally-it was a thinking time. On the plane everything stopped and her brain couldn't shut down. Of course this time she promised herself she wouldn't cry-this wasn't one of her dad's private jets. She didn't want strangers to see her cry. It was supposed to be a happy time.

A simple trip across the ocean and she would be in her new home. After it was decided she would be leaving, she started to research for months on a place to live. She had lists of pros and cons, pictures tacked up on her walls, and notes everywhere trailing behind her-even on napkins at dinner. When she moved she didn't want to keep moving, she wanted to move, live for awhile, put down her own roots. Her entire life before had been spent rushing from place to place, and she was tired of it. She found the apartment-or flat (that would take some getting used to) in a small ad in a newspaper that her dad brought home from a London business trip. She had refused to go, afraid that going with him and seeing the area first would some how make her leery to leave her "home". Not to mention he IS the type that would show her the worst areas just to make her stay home.

The apartment ad was simple, a basement flat was open on a nice busy street in a decent area of London. Affordable with her job, but it needed renovations. The price she paid to have her dad kick in for the renovations was expected, Sunday night calls, a couple of e-mails a week, and for him to get to throw her a going away party (well a small one), and her taking self defense lessons "just in case". So she called, talked to the landlady and offered to make the renovations.

The landlady was remarkably nice, even considered nice by the construction workers her dad hired. She ran a background check, deemed Madeline "safe" for her other tenants (whatever that meant), and went about telling her all about London. There were some stipulations though, they would talk over color schemes (after all if Madeline ever moved out, the renovations would stay) plumbing, and other construction ideas. It was actually fun, it reminded her of her mother.

She was looking forward to a face to face meeting. Mrs. Hudson would be the only one in London to truly know who she was, with the work her dad was putting into 221c and just talking in general it was a hard secret to keep. Of course once she found out, and after the background check, a lot of conversations with Mrs. Hudson started with "You poor dear girl".

And that was the main reason she was to remain unknown in London.

* * *

The flight was unremarkable, with the exception of the old lady next to her snoring. Unlike her dad who could probably build five robots on a plane if he wanted to, Madeline didn't get much done even though she had brought books, music, and a notepad. Mostly she daydreamed about her new life. She wanted to make friends, real friends. It was silly, she knew it was but all the sitcoms on television tended to be about twenty something friends-and she wanted that.

Wanted a fresh start, friends, and new experiences.

It took awhile once off the plane to come by her luggage, she only came with a suitcase and carry on since most of her stuff was already sitting in boxes in her apartment. It was still a decent amount for one person to juggle, it all teetered like a fine balancing act as she headed towards the doors where taxi's lay waiting for people that were coming out of the terminal.

Autumn in London was remarkably similar to autumn in New York, a little more overcast and maybe a few degrees colder but nothing else was different about the air. Which meant the dark tights she wore under her skirt would still keep her warm and her slightly large blue sweatshirt would at least be decent until she arrived at Baker street.

She found an empty taxi, and away they went. Questions were asked, the Cabbie was friendly but not overly so. The kind of friendly you get when they're trying to get a better tip. She didn't mind, the more she talked about how excited she was to be moving to London the less she had to think about everything else. All the worries were starting to creep in, the 'will I like it?', the 'what if I can't make it?', the thoughts you get when you are so excited for something yet worried that something might cause it all to crumble down.

Baker street was just as nice as the pictures, the sandwich shop next to the flat looked wonderfully quaint, and it was all she could do to stop her hands from shaking as she got her luggage out. She had finally done it, she was finally there.

On her own.

The front door opened to reveal a lady who was only slightly taller than her (thanks Mom for the short genes!) with hair still reddish and not quite aged as much as her face was. "Maddie?" It was hesitant but there was a smile on her face, as if she would be anyone else-she had called only a few minutes prior to let her know she landed.

She smiled, and nodded. "That's me!" She moved towards the front steps, her luggage balancing carefully.

"Oh come in you poor dear girl, you'll catch a cold out there in that outfit of yours." It was exactly what she expected, and honestly something she found herself happy to have got with moving into this building-a mother hen. A mother figure was something she missed deeply. Her dad's girlfriend was fine, she was nice, smart, and really lovely to her-but by the time she found her way into their lives, she was too old to be babied and so a friendship was born instead. Mrs. Hudson, however right away became a mother figure. They had bonded the past few weeks on the phone as construction went off and on, and it was exactly what she needed. She had a feeling Mrs. Hudson was like that with everyone though...mothering.

"I was running late and left my coat behind." Maddie explained stepping into the foyer. It was nice, it was-really. Old, musty, with character. Her dad's houses were new and modern, somewhat sterile. The houses she grew up in were a lot like this, she liked it. It only took her a moment to put her bags down before Mrs. Hudson was hugging her.

"It's so good to finally meet you dear, it really is. The boys have been driving me mad these days."

"The boys?" She asked, returning the hug and pulling away after a moment with a raised brow.

"Oh, the other tenants upstairs." She explained, helping Madeline pick up her bags and lead her towards a door to the side. "Been gone all hours of the night, stomping in expecting tea and biscuits-I'm a landlady not a maid!" There was something in her voice though that depicted she didn't mind it all that much. "Since you're in the basement flat you won't have to deal with the noise as much, and oh it's so beautiful."

She followed the elder woman through the door of her flat which right away led to the staircase into her new home, and as the light switched on she could agree-it was quite beautiful. It was everything she had ever dreamed of. All the planning had paid off, "Oh I'm so happy you talked me out of the yellow." At first because it was a basement flat she thought about painting the walls yellow-nice and bright to keep things cheery. Mrs. Hudson suggested a more rich blue, deep in color-it didn't even make the area look smaller.

"The furniture you've chosen is lovely though." A compliment for a compliment it seemed as Mrs. Hudson ran her hand along a dark coffee colored sofa. Furniture it was decided would stay in the flat whenever Madeline decided to leave, mostly by her own choice-she figured if she was to leave London she probably wouldn't be just relocating in the neighborhood but flying back to the states...she was well aware that this was sink or swim, and while she had confidence she knew what kind of outcomes were possible.

There were boxes of her stuff here and there, although some of it had been put away already. Only the really personal stuff-and marked as such had been left in boxes. Mrs. Hudson stayed quiet as she took it all in, it wasn't an overly large flat, although the right type of furniture made it seem downright spacious. There were basement windows here and there, letting in some light. Most of the light came from floor lamps and table lamps that Mrs. Hudson had already turned on prior to her arrival.

"It's just...so perfect Mrs. Hudson." Honestly she felt like crying. It WAS perfect. Her own personal space-all her own. It wasn't modern, it was comfy, the only modern technology filtering through the space was a flat screen television mounted on the wall opposite of the sofa and a computer tucked away on a desk right next to the kitchen area.

"How about you look around for a bit and freshen up then come across the hall in a bit for some tea?" Mrs. Hudson offered, it was clear that the young woman wanted to look around, and see what the flat had to offer. Madeline blushed, she was that transparent.

"Thank you!"

Mrs. Hudson nodded and left, leaving a set of keys on the end table by the sofa.

Then she was alone.

* * *

The first thing she did was walk the kitchen, open doors to see where they had put her plates and cups. Soon she found that someone (ie: her dad) had managed to stock her apartment up with all the food she enjoyed and what she liked to cook. Amazing. She didn't think he noticed THAT much-to be fair that could have been the doing of numerous other people, including a robot-but he probably was the one to think for them to do it. Sufficiently satisfied with the state of the kitchen she headed towards her desk, computer, printer, anything she would need as far as office supplies go in the drawers of her dark cherry desk-including more post it notes then she would ever possibly use. There were bookshelves all around the flat, some tall, some small, most already filled with her books and her work that she had arranged to do while in London.

Near the desk was a hall that branched out, one side was a bedroom and the other was a door that lead to what she would assume was the bathroom. With a quick peek inside, she knew she'd be spending a lot of time in the bathroom. A nice large tub had been installed, a shower off to one side, and a very nice lighted sink and mirror area. She grew up with a small bathroom with her mother and step-father, no lock on the door, no privacy for long baths (take longer than fifteen minutes in the bathroom then you better be sick or someone was sinning according to her step-father). When Mrs. Hudson had agreed to all of her bathroom wants, and construction guys agreed it could be done in the building she had jumped for joy, especially since the bathrooms at her dad's were all sterile and never included an actual bathtub. Seeing it in person was way better than all the pictures sent to her. Dark tile on the floor, gray marble counter tops, and a simple white wash on the walls. Perfect.

She explored the bedroom next, simple. The bed was a double-she didn't need anything bigger as she was quite small in general and it would be overly ridiculous. The bedding was dark purple, matching the intensity of the blue that carried over from the living room. It was a room that would be nice to lay in for hours, to prop her laptop up on her bed and lay undisturbed watching whatever she pleased. The lack of overall space meant her closet was small, but with organization not be too much of a problem. It lay barren, with boxes nearby-she wasn't a fan of letting other people handle her clothing.

There were a few pieces missing, but they would come over in the next few weeks. It would take awhile to get settled anyway.

All in all, the apartment was perfect. All of her apprehension she gained while traveling had just popped away, even as she heard something drop upstairs-a hard clunk on the ground followed by someone mumbling, the walls weren't thin enough to hear what was said.

She grabbed her carry on from the plane and headed into the bathroom, the flight was long, and a quick rinse down and change would do her good.

* * *

She didn't dilly dally in the shower, and as such was at Mrs. Hudson's door less than half an hour after the woman had left her apartment to make tea. Her ginger hair was damp and tied up in a high bun to keep it busy for the time being. Since she had a flat full of food, and a lot of unpacking to do, she figured the night would be spent in. Therefore comfort had been key, which explained the slipper boots she wore along with dark leggings and yet another over sized sweater, this time pink. A quick knock and she was being ushered in, the smell of tea was in the air, and she wondered if the stereotype of everyone in the UK loving tea was true.

"C'mon in dear, I have one of the boys here patiently waiting to meet you-had to get away from his other half for the moment."

"N...not my other half." a male voice filtered out from the kitchen and into the living area, walking out with a tray that had a few cookies on it, he set it down to join the tea on the table before looking up. "Oh...h...hello." A bashful smile was given as he extended his hand, which she met with her own.

"This is Doctor John Watson, and John this is Madeline S...O'Brien" Her heart sped up with the introduction but it seemed like last minute Mrs. Hudson remembered, she wasn't Madeline Stark anymore. Not here, not now.

"Nice to meet you Dr. Watson."

"John please."

"Maddie!"

And then it was an awkward few moments as they all shuffled around to sit, asking how tea was taken, and having a warm mug placed in her hands. She watched the Doctor carefully, he wasn't a tall man, but still had quite a few inches on her, he was dressed for comfort much like her which said he was either expecting to be in for the night or simply didn't care how he dressed. She wondered if the bang she heard earlier had anything to do with him coming down to spend some time with Mrs. Hudson.

"We hardly realized that Mrs. Hudson was renting the basement flat out." He said, taking a sip of his tea.

Mrs. Hudson had rolled her eyes and just swatted him on his sweater covered arm, "Oh you should have. You boys and your running around-how did you not notice we had construction workers day in and day out?" She sighed, and shook her head-giving Maddie a 'boys will be boys' look.

"Well we have been busy working."

"Oh, do you and your...room-mate work together?" This was Maddie as she took a sip of her tea...nope...she did not like that, no. Ugh. Great. It's not like she went twenty five years without having any tea, but generally spending most of her time growing up in the American south, tea was Sweet and cold. This was warm, and the tea left an unpleasant aftertaste on her tongue.

John looked thoughtful for a moment, having a bite of a cookie and giving a slight smile. "I guess you could say we do. I work on my own too, but I help him-he's a…"

"...consulting detective." It was a deep voice that interrupted John. Mrs. Hudson jumped up quickly and already was heading around for another cup for tea.

"Oh come in Sherlock, meet our new renter, have some tea."

It was a curious moment as she stood up, polite-as was drilled into her by her step-father, a habit she was trying to break since her real dad would pretty much ignore any realm of polite behavior and she found some of it at least to be refreshing.

When she stood she got the first look of him, coming to stand behind John. Suddenly she was all too aware that she was in plain clothes, plain face, and a real uneventful hairstyle. The man looked as if he had just got back from the office-but a consulting detective? While she had no idea what that was she figured it had nothing to do with office work. Purple button up and black slacks, shoes were scuff free and cared for. The shirt was slightly undone, and looked as if it hadn't seen a tie that day. It was interesting to see someone so dressed up in a place where everyone looked like they were ready to retire for the night, even Mrs. Hudson was in comfortable looking clothes. She always hated to meet new people while looking out of place, like when her dad would bring home clients to talk to sometimes in the early years and she would have no warning which caused her to meet some very important people in her Hello Kitty nightie.

"Can't stay long Mrs. Hudson we have a new case." He said, with blue eyes sweeping up and down her, spending too long looking in certain areas-but not the areas men usually looked. She looked away, towards John who was already wearing an apologetic look. That look, combined with the scrutiny, and the warning from Mrs. Hudson about the tenants upstairs meant only one thing...she wasn't being warned about John. She was being warned about Sherlock.

"Don't start Sherlock." John was already saying as he slowly started to get up, resigned to the fate of having to leave the comfort of home.

"I wasn't going to."

"Start what?" Maddie asked, only slightly perplexed at the oddity of the situation. She couldn't help herself, curiosity killed the cat after all.

"He just doesn't want me to tell you, what you tell me. A twenty-something American...spending many years in the southern states suddenly moving to London for the first time. Breaking away from home but able to afford the renovations needed for the basement flat, coming from wealth. Probably your first time away from home, trying to...find yourself in a foreign land…"

Creepy.

"You already have work here though, wanting to break away from the money of your...father I would assume. It's a stay at home job, probably to due with data entry or something. Simple."

Insulting.

"You wear over sized shirts to hide your form, hurt by a former boyfriend no doubt-same reason why you are shy-your movements are made as minimal as possible-usually seen in women who have seen abuse, afraid of being seen. You're nervous in general though, doubts about surviving on your own-which...you probably won't, I give you a month before you want to go home."

Only marginally true, and she didn't think she'd only last a month...

"Stop that right now Sherlock Holmes!" That was Mrs. Hudson, apparently having enough while Maddie just stood there like a fish trying to process it. Not all true though, but shocking nonetheless that he was able to get near the truth. It only took her moments to realize he was doing that simply to show off, possibly embarrass or shame her into leaving, he probably didn't enjoy change-and her living there would be a change regardless of how limited their interactions with each other would be.

Sherlock, to Mrs. Hudson's credit did cease. He looked a bit taken aback by the women yelling at him, he probably needed to be reminded-probably didn't do well in social situations and just...went off the deep end because someone hurt him in the past. Can't get hurt again if you push people away by telling them you know their deepest secrets just by the way they hold themselves. She wondered how often he was wrong. "Sorry." He said but where he could deduce, she could observe.

"You don't have to apologize if you don't mean it." She told him, "Obviously I come from wealth, I was able to have the apar-flat renovated very nicely-maybe one day you'll even see it. As for my over sized shirts, I had been traveling, and now I intend on staying in-should I not be comfortable as I unpack? Hesitant movements? Maybe I'm just polite."

"Perhaps, but that's not why."

"Perhaps."

"Come John, we have a murder scene to attend."

John who had been looking between them like he was watching a tennis match got up, "Thank you for the tea Mrs. Hudson, and it was very lovely to meet you Maddie-hopefully we can chat more soon."

"Well, you know where my door is!" She said...and blushed, that was a horrible joke.

"Yes, pleasure to meet you...Maddie?"

"Madeline O'Brien, Mr. Holmes-and likewise, maybe next time we can have a conversation."

And then they were off, leaving her and Mrs. Hudson sitting there awkwardly for a moment nursing their tea.

"He isn't always like that you know, he just...is…"

"I understand Mrs. Hudson, really I do. I know a lot of intelligent people, some of them act like that too...well maybe not like THAT, but similar. He's just trying to assert his intelligence, I bet you anything that growing up someone kept lording their own intelligence over him making him feel bad."

Mrs. Hudson nodded, "Well now, what are you going to be up to now that you're here in London?"

"Well, I'm not sure. I just wanted to live away from home for awhile-away from that life…"

"Oh I just can't imagine it, to be his daughter. It's amazing that neither John nor Sherlock know who you are from face alone."

Maddie shrugged, this she was used to-"Dad did a good job keeping my picture out of the paper, only my name will ever lead to anything-which is why I appreciate you keeping it a secret."

"Oh I understand dear, all that nasty stuff-best kept in the past, and now you have your future at your finger tips."

"Speaking of future Mrs. Hudson, I think I should get started unpacking-if I don't do it now, I won't do it for weeks on end."

As Maddie left Mrs. Hudson's flat and towards her own, the door opening and heading down the stairs she wondered to herself...would Sherlock Holmes figure out who she was...or would she seem so insignificant that he didn't bother?


	2. Chapter 1

**Fade Into You**

**Rating:** R

**Note:** Thanks for reading! (and reviewing!) This is a slow build novel, and we're obviously in for a lot of chapters (some slow and some extremely active). I decided to switch this from the crossover section to the regular Sherlock section since as of right now the crossover is mostly in the background.

**Chapter One:** Deliveries

John Watson was having a busy week, no wait-two weeks. Late autumn always seemed to have an influx of people needing to be seen at work, and when he wasn't at work he was right next to Sherlock trying to solve the newest case. A serial killer had been on the loose for awhile, tonight was the night they solved the case. Sherlock had been keeping secrets again, thoughts about who may be the killer without telling John. The excuse was, 'well I wasn't absolutely sure and didn't want to be wrong after getting Lestrade involved'. That was always the excuse when Sherlock didn't share information. In the end though, he was happy the case was over and he could have a break...for a few days at least.

Sherlock chose to stay in the lab with Molly, running samples and probably ignoring her general existence (John was slightly positive Sherlock had no idea he left as well). John was in need of food and sleep. A lot of sleep, the only good thing about solving the case (well outside of the fact there was no longer a murderer on the loose) was the fact that he had the day off tomorrow. He enjoyed working with Sherlock, but even he needed a break from the excitement every so often.

Entering Baker street he was met with the new neighbor, who was currently (as it seemed) trying to decide which box to take down first. There were quite a few of them of all shapes or sizes, and it looked as if she was testing to see which were heavy. "Hello Maddie." He greeted, unsure if she had even heard him come into the foyer.

She jumped at his voice, so that would be a no-she hadn't heard him. She pressed a hand to her chest and her pale complexion turned an interesting shade of red. "H..hi, hello, um...John. How are you tonight?"

They had been in and out so often that he hadn't spoken to her but the few times he saw her when she was leaving her flat. It was strange-even Sherlock seemed to forget about the girl who lived in the basement. She was pretty, but young. John and Sherlock had rushed away after meeting her for the first time and all Sherlock would say on the subject of having a new neighbor in Baker street was that 'she doesn't seem the type that will last all by herself' followed by, 'seems a bit...insignificant.'

He simply told Sherlock not to be a jerk.

"Oh, I'm well-we finally solved the case." He started, already hanging up his coat. Sometimes he brought it to the flat with him, other times-and usually when Sherlock stayed out he hung it down on the coat rack in the foyer-a good indicator to his room-mate that he was home (not that it mattered). "This the last of your stuff from America?" He asked, remembering the last time they hurriedly spoke she was already apologizing in advance for any boxes they would have to stumble over in the next few days.

She nodded, happily. "Finally, I was starting to worry that it was dropped in the ocean." She said, tugging on her sweater a little. He wondered if part of what Sherlock had said previously was true of her being hurt, but he blocked it out of his mind as soon as the thought came. Sherlock had nearly been spot on with John's life but, wasn't that way with everyone, and he didn't want to take it at face value. At least not with someone living so close, he would make his own judgments.

"Would you like some help carrying some of this stuff down? It looks like a lot for one person to manage." He offered, even with as tired as he was he couldn't stand the idea of leaving her to all those boxes by herself.

"How about this, if you help me I'll make you dinner sometime this week. I would tonight but I have a weekly phone call with my Dad planned." She explained.

He nodded, how could he say no to a free meal? "Sounds like a deal, here I'll grab this one it looks like it weighs a ton…" And it felt like it was made out of bricks.

He followed her down the stairs to her flat, the first time he would see it, and he took the moment to glance around after setting the box down. It was nice, very cozy. A lot like upstairs but, different. It wasn't what he was expecting, all rich and deep colors, a scent of cinnamon in the air (a nice change from the formaldehyde). There were books on nearly every surface, books and notebooks, and she suddenly became very curious to him. Never judge a book by its cover...data entry...yeah right Sherlock.

John Watson was a gentleman though, and it would come up naturally-instead he continued the conversation as he followed her up the stairs to retrieve more boxes. "Close with your family then?"

She shrugged, a thoughtful expression on her face, "I guess. My Dad is great, and we are really close, but we're also too much alike-so lately we had been fighting a lot. It's better now though that I've moved." It was an honest answer, she grabbed two of the lighter looking boxes, and he followed suit. "Do you have family around John?"

"Just my sister, not that close though." He explained, watching the steps as best he could while handling the boxes.

"No siblings for me, although I guess that's for the best." It was a sad tone, followed by an 'I shouldn't have said that' look. "I mean, I just...um...couldn't imagine more of us around, we'd probably end the world."

"Are you liking London so far?" A complete change of subject, John could take the social cue that anymore family talk would probably get sad fast for her or end the conversation altogether. Back up the stairs, and there were only a few more boxes left to grab.

"It's great so far, I haven't been able to see a lot of it. I wanted to get myself really settled before I embark on adventures. Mr. Holmes was right, I do work from home-just not data entry-so I wanted to have everything I needed put together before I start. Some of these boxes are for work, so it looks like I'll be able to see a bit of London soon."

"What do you do?"

Only two more boxes left now, thank goodness-quite a few of them were heavy.

"What do you think I do?" She asked back with a smile, peering back at him as she grabbed her last box to follow him down the stairs.

"Honestly I'm afraid to even suggest something, your flat has put a wrench in my general idea of you-not in a bad way, I...i mean it's just that, well with Sherlock…" He stumbled over his words, not wanting to offend her.

She just laughed, "It's okay John. For some reason people who don't know me, tend not to expect a lot out of me." She shrugged it off, but in that moment he could see it was something that bothered her. "I translate old texts from a lot of different languages, my boss can't trust a computer to scan and translate, so I'm doing it all by hand."

"History then?" He couldn't imagine any other reason to translate old texts to English.

"Kind of. It's a lot of things all wrapped into one, sometimes the books are about way of life for Egyptians, and that can be important because we might learn something about their culture we thought lost-or something that benefits us today. For the time they were heavily advanced and we still don't know how they did half of what they did. Other times it's religious text and spooky superstition. It just depends the book."

"Your smart." He said.

She smiled, "Very."

"Sherlock was wrong about you."

"To be fair, Mrs. Hudson cut him off-I'm sure if we allowed him to continue on he would have figured it out."

Music rang through her flat, it was some kind of rock song that he could have sworn he had heard before. "That must be my Dad, on time for once." A smile. "I have to take this, but I really appreciate your help. How about I come up sometime tomorrow and we can schedule dinner?"

He nodded, "That would be lovely." He said, giving a small wave. She smiled, and he turned heading up the stairs. He could already hear her voice answering the phone, a happy sounding 'Hi Dad!' and before he could hear more he shut her front door and headed up to his flat.

* * *

As much as she had wanted to get away and have her own life, she was also slightly homesick. The homesickness only struck during her conversations with her Dad. After John had left her flat, she had grabbed her phone quickly and darted to her bedroom. She trusted that John would shut her front door and even if he didn't it wasn't like her door led to the outside world.

"Hi Dad!" She answered right away as she dove into her bed, it wasn't that late-and she'd probably get up and unpack when the phone call was over, but the only way to concentrate on conversation was to be in a dark room absent from things that would distract her.

"Hey Mads, tell me about your week...ow, that's not what I wanted you to do!" She knew where he was immediately-in his workshop with the robots. Unlike her, he could tinker while he talked. She figured after weeks of repetitive phone calls his attention on the conversation would drop while he messed around with his suits and his robots, but for now even while he was tinkering she knew that his full attention.

"Same as last week, just catching up on work while the last of my boxes came. I should have sent them sooner. I've been lost without some of that stuff." She paused for a moment as she made her way under her blankets-the downside to a basement flat, it was cold. "I joined a book club this week."

"Riveting."

"I like books."

"I've noticed."

"I thought it would be a nice way to meet some new people over here, they meet on Wednesday nights. Only discussing new books, so I'll actually be reading fiction for once."

"To be fair most of those religions texts are fiction."

"Dad."

"Okay, okay. Well you're right at least you'll be reading for something other than work and maybe you'll make that best friend forever you've been dreaming about. I still don't understand why Jarvis couldn't have been your best friend, or me."

"Well, one is an bodiless AI and the other is my Dad-I wouldn't mind branching out…"

"Speaking of, I have you scheduled to continue your self defense."

She sighed and rolled her eyes, of course he would schedule it without talking to her first. "When is it?"

"Tuesday morning from 4AM to 10AM."

"What!?" She sat up, blankets flying off. That was way too early for physical activity. It wasn't that she didn't like it, she did-she was actually doing well at it while she was home. It was just the idea of getting up so early when her body was still half asleep that irked her.

"It's the only time that could fit in her schedule." He explained.

"Oh, she's still going to be training me? Isn't that going to be hard since y'know I'm in London now?"

"She's doing something over there now anyway, and when she can't attend I'll send someone else. Be ready."

"Fine."

And they continued to talk, a lot of back and forth, and mostly just playing catch up. Over the years they had a fairly decent relationship even with how traumatic it seemed to start for both of them. At home they didn't spend a lot of time talking, mostly it was spent side by side in his workshop with him teaching her robotics. She didn't look like him, you could see it in the eyes sometimes, but other than that she was the spitting image of her mother. While looks differed they were on the same level of intelligence, in different areas. His intelligence leaned towards science and mathematics, and hers was devoted to music and language, after tests they also concluded that she had the better memory as well (he defended that was simply due to youth).

"How's Pepper?"

"Same old, she's stuck on the last move in your chess game still."

"Are you helping her?"

"Of course not."

Maddie felt her chest grow tight for a moment, a deep longing to be home grew. It's silly, no matter how much you wanted to get away...you can still miss home-badly. In her silence, her Dad kept up the conversation.

"Have you played yet?" She knew exactly what he meant.

"I just got it today in the boxes that arrived-I haven't even unpacked it yet. I might tomorrow morning sometime. I don't know exactly how thin the walls are and don't want to disturb the neighbors too much, I didn't think to buy headphones for it" Her keyboard; grand piano sound in a smaller form-better than trying to fit an actual piano in her flat.

They first met after he heard her play, the teen prodigy traveling around playing concerts thrown together by her mother and step-father. Mostly they were religious affairs with her step-father preaching before and after her playing, using her music to lure donations in. It wasn't the kind of concert Tony Stark would go to on his own, but her mother invited him.

He knew right away when they met, she didn't know for quite sometime after that that he was actually her real dad.

"Well make sure you keep it up, your neighbors will appreciate it-I know I did."

She smiled at that, ending on sentimental, what would people say about him now.

"I will, I'll pick it up tomorrow Dad I promise." She had known him for less than ten years now, and there was something special about that, and it did make it hard to be apart-sometimes being with him made her feel like the kid she never got to be. It was that alone that made it so hard to go, to grow up-but she knew if she didn't leave-she would be a thirty year old living at home with her dad.

"Good, well it looks like Dummy is about to set something on fire, so I got to go."

"Well, be careful. It was good catching up." a pause, "I love you Dad."

"Love you too kiddo."

And then there was the silence. Her room was dim, only a little illumination filtered in through the living room where lights were still on. Her body was warm under the blankets but she didn't want to get up yet. She actually wanted to cry. The new place was lovely, what she had seen of the city (even limited as it was) had been amazing, and she was starting to make some friends. She had everything she had wanted, everything. She had come so far.

She wasn't that terrified teenager anymore dammit! She was here by herself and proud. So what if she missed home a little bit, everyone did-even Pepper admitted having pangs of homesickness even years and years out of the house.

In the dim light she couldn't help but to succumb. It was better to cry in her room, instead of breaking down later and crying somewhere public. She cried for her past, cried for home, cried for her mother, cried just to cry, and cried because she was crying.

Curled up in a ball, alone, with no one to listen to her torment.

* * *

Sherlock hadn't spent long at the lab, while he tried to deny his body on a case, now that the murders had been solved there was no way spending a night working in the lab testing rotting skin samples would be pleasurable (and of course when well rested he would find that to be quite pleasurable). He was tired.

When he had managed to make it to Baker street, John was only just heading up the stairs to their flat. "You left an hour before me." He stated (he had noticed when John left this time), clear that John only just getting to the flat was strange. In night traffic it took less than twenty minutes to get to the flat from St. Barts, and he wasn't aware of any traffic jams. John certainly didn't look like he had stopped anywhere, no dirt or mud on his feet, no bags of take-away, there was no reason for him to be just getting in.

"I helped Maddie bring some boxes down to her flat, took a bit."

Ah, that explained it. John, always helpful with women.

As John was unlocking the door to their flat, he turned slightly, "You didn't stay long."

"Tired." Was all he said, no issues with saying such after working so long and hard on a single case.

"Me too." Door to the flat was opened, and John was already yawning. "Y'know…" it took a moment for him to stop, with Sherlock just watching-reminding himself to take in deep breaths of oxygen to avoid yawning himself.

"I know a lot of things John." Cheeky.

John gave a roll of his eyes at that, but he was amused. Sometimes it was easy to fall into that friendship when he wasn't careful (or was tired), but Sherlock knew deep down that he had no friends...no...that he shouldn't have friends. It was just a bad idea, like a grenade waiting to explode.

"I was going to say, Maddie is a lot different than you think she is."

"Sweater girl? Different? Oh please, do go on."

"She's smart Sherlock, smarter than you think."

"Sure." He said, a roll of his eyes-if John Watson thinks someone is smart that could mean anything. To be fair, they had been in a hurry the day he met her. He didn't read everything about her, just the obvious, and the obvious didn't shout smart. Maybe somewhat smart, most people were, but not smart smart. That night he met her he had even looked up her name, did research, and he came up blank. Leading him to believe that this girl was simply a quite insignificant woman who would live under them for a spell.

"Well I'm going to bed, good night Sherlock."

"Good night John."

If he had dropped himself on the sofa he would have fallen asleep there, instead he chose to go to his bedroom. It was better for him to sleep in a bed after a case. Better rest meant less sleep needed for him later.

In a few minutes he was settled in bed, his head hitting the pillow. It was bliss to actually relax for a moment. He could just fall asleep so...wait...what was that? He lifted his head up and looked around his dark room, crying-he was hearing crying.

Bedside lamp turned on again, a glance around with a frown on his face, hands through his hair. Frustration, he just wanted to sleep. It only took him moments to find the vent under his bed, open, linked up with the rest of the house-and someone was crying. It wasn't the cry of someone having a bad day, it was something that sounded like a full body sob, the kind that ached in your bones. The kind of crying that had been done over Redbeard. Don't think of that now, he scolded himself.

It wasn't Mrs. Hudson, she had nothing to cry about-and even if she did she wouldn't be able to make that much noise. It was the girl, the basement girl, crying. Their vents must have been linked somehow-something unnoticed previously due to the basement being empty.

"Great."

She was probably homesick, right on track if he was to be honest. He figured she wouldn't last long before giving up. He might not be all that compassionate but he still felt bad hearing her tears (or maybe he was just tired), he contemplated all the possible outcomes of the night, from ignoring it to going straight down to her flat to tell her to knock it off.

The one that won though, would be a comfort to him as well and help him drift off into sleep.

If he could hear her loud and clear, then she would be able to hear him. Instead of flat out telling her to stop (thus ruining the advantage of being able to hear directly into someplace in her flat-he assumed the bedroom-and while he didn't think she was important there were always things to learn about someone if they didn't know you could hear them) he moved to the living room and came back with his violin. She would hear him loud and clear, but just think the walls were thin, and it would hopefully sooth her and allow her to at least fall asleep without making anymore blubbering noises.

He started to play, and his music replaced the sound of her tears. Drowning them out completely for the moment as his hands plucked away at his instrument, playing awkwardly on his bed.

He hoped this wouldn't become repetitive, only so many allowances could be made for a crying women.

* * *

She had been crying for awhile, amazed at how long she was able to keep going. Everything seemed to be pouring out, all the stress over the move, being alone the last few weeks, all the new experiences. She cried over that now more than her past. Her face was red and hot, and her head was pounding.

She felt like she was a water park by the amount of liquid leaking out of her eyes and nose. It just wouldn't stop. She stayed in her room, not wanting to turn every room into a crying room. She didn't know how much time had passed by the time she first heard the music.

It wasn't as muffled as most noises in the flat, she wondered if it had anything to do from where it was coming from. She dried her tears with the back of her hand, curiosity won over the tears as she listened to the music.

Violin.

It was long sorrow filled notes, as if the music had been fueled by her emotion. It wasn't a recording, she could tell that right away. She didn't think John was a violin player, his fingers were too short to be so skilled. Mrs. Hudson had arthritis and wouldn't be able to play this well. It left only one person.

Sherlock Holmes was a violinist.

She laid there and listened, trying to breath out her stuffed up from crying nose (and failing). The music kept her tears away, it was easy to focus on the sound. It was beautiful.

He gave her a gift that night, the gift of sleeping or crying more. The gift of feeling like she made the right choice after all, as she fell asleep to the wonderful music of her neighbor.

It wouldn't all be that bad here.


	3. Chapter 2

**Fade Into You**

**Rated: R**

**Notes: **This chapter took awhile to figure out. I finally decided where I wanted the story to take place. This takes place after The Blind Banker, but we're having a HUGE gap between that and The Great Game. We'll see more and more of her interacting with Sherlock as chapters go by-but it will be a slow build considering how his personality is.

I appreciate all the reviews and story likes so far. It helps me realize people are reading this, so posting it stays on my agenda. I'm going to add a warning again, while this: as of current tends to be light and fluffy-it will not always remain so. **There will be VERY dark themes that could possibly be triggers for some people.** I'll probably keep on warning you of this as chapters get darker, or there are flashbacks to darker times in Maddie's life. Please be warned.

I have also created a tumblr as a sandbox to host some of my thoughts, or pictures that could inspire scenes of this story past and future, even a timeline of events of Maddie's life up until this story is there. I'm linking/making it public because I've always liked when other writers have done that, but be warned there will be past/future story spoilers in it. No story will be posted there however. You can find it at: thefadeintoyouuniverse . tumblr . com (remove the spaces)

Thanks for reading!

* * *

**Chapter Two:** Friends

When she woke up, it felt like she had been drinking all night long. Her head was pounding, eyes felt swollen, and she was still in her jeans. Hair was plastered to her face, dried tears-the best glue there was...as she pulled it off her cheek she wondered just how bad she looked. She stumbled out of her bed and towards the bathroom, a tad upset with herself for falling asleep with nearly all of the lights on in her flat-that was going to be a fun electric bill.

The first thing she did was assess the damage crying herself to sleep left her with. Hair was awful, half of it was all bunched up and ratted (times like these she really wanted to chop it off). Her face was pale, had creases in it from her pillow, and her eyes were slightly swollen and massively bloodshot. So, not awful. A shower, coffee, and happy thoughts would make it all better.

First something for her pounding headache.

She searched her medicine cabinet, grabbed what was acceptable and then probably took two pills too many. She spent her morning getting ready, making coffee, showering, and thinking about Sherlock's music. It's what led her to lean against her counter, coffee cup steaming in hand, and blank stare at one long unopened box. The thought of playing was daunting for some reason now that she moved, even more intimidating since she heard the violin music-which had been perfect in her opinion. Her confidence had been shaken by the crying last night, she had been doing fine, then she fell apart. Doubts were swirling around in her head, the thought that maybe it would have been better to stay closer to home when she moved out for the first time…

"Enough!" She told herself, setting her mug down so fast it made a rather loud clanking noise on the counter-top. "I am strong, and I can do this. This is my home now." A deep breath.

She started the day by unpacking the boxes her and John had brought down the previous night. Some were books, some clothes, even more of it was random snack food she knew she wouldn't be able to get in London (A girl had to be ready right?). She even took the time to unpack her keyboard and put it on a stand, tucking it away against a bare wall-that had been reserved for that item alone. It made the flat look complete.

It was noon by the time she was unpacking, the boxes all put away as well. Her flat looked like home now, and it was quiet. It was actually nice. She wondered when would be a good time to go bug John about dinner, he didn't seem like a late sleeper, but he lived with Sherlock and as nice as it was to hear him play last night, it didn't change the fact he was probably ruder than the average person when it came to social interaction. Maybe wait a few more hours...just in case.

So instead, she hopped on her computer, e-mails were checked, including a new move in her chess game with Pepper (finally), schedule was looked at-not really like she had much of a life yet. Self defense and book club were the only things outside of work for her to do-and work wasn't even scheduled, she could do it anytime she wanted as long as she got a set number of translations in a week.

She had spent some of her internet time on looking up her neighbors, finding two separate blogs, one for each man. Similar but different, John had been posting about cases, where as Sherlock's blog seemed incoherent in comparison it was about everything and nothing, it also seemed to have a few unsolved messages he had posted to see if anyone could help him figure them out. She didn't bother with them, maybe later-she promised herself as she bookmarked his site.

Maybe she should make a blog.

Oh god no, that would be awful. "And today I figured out a clay pot recipe from thousands of years ago due to my translations, I also made a stew. Time to watch the news xoxo." Yeah, no one would want to read what she was up to. Actually there were thousands of people who probably wanted to read what Tony Starks daughter was up to, sadly she wasn't nearly as flamboyant as her dad. Just a boring girl.

She moved away from her computer, taking a glance at the clock-she had spent nearly two hours on their websites-at least now she figured it was a good time to visit with John. She headed to the bathroom to toss her now dried hair half up in a few hair clips. The only reason she took the time to toss on a little make-up (and prodding her eye with the mascara wand on accident) was due to the idea that after stopping with John she'd go do some shopping. Her flat was still fairly stocked, but getting out and grabbing a few more items wouldn't hurt.

Today she looked more like an average twenty something, a blue button up that fit her, black jeans, and black boots. She didn't always look dumpy...was the point she wanted to prove, considering that any other time they had seen her was in her comfy clothes. One of her boxes, did thankfully contain a coat (so she could stop wandering around in layers). She grabbed that and kept it in her arms after tossing her purse over her shoulder and locking up.

It was moments later when she was at 221B, knocking at their door and teetering on the steep staircase. The basement staircase wasn't nearly as steep-it felt like she was standing on top of a ladder.

It was of course John who answered, a smile was on his face. He looked relaxed. Much more like the first day she met him. "Maddie, hello-would you like to come in?"

"Sure." She couldn't stop herself, she was curious as to what their flat looked like. The first thing she noticed was the clutter that was trying not to be clutter. It looked like someone just kept throwing papers and others kept trying to organize them to look better. It was dusty. Sherlock sat behind a microscope, not paying much attention to them at all.

"Heading out?" John asked, which pulled her away from looking around.

"Yes, figured I'd take a trip out to the shops today-pick up a few things." She was feeling better since she unpacked, more at home, more like she WAS going to stay there. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Sherlock was looking up away from his microscope. "I figured I'd come up and ask you before I left, when would work best for you with that dinner I owe you?" There was no way to say that to where it didn't come off as sounding horribly flirty. It was the last thing she was trying to do, so she said something that she would probably forever kick herself for: "And Sherlock you're welcome to come to dinner too if you'd like."

"What for? I'm not the one that helped you move." It was the tone of voice that suggested he was horribly bored, and would like nothing to do with dinner at her flat.

"Just being nice." She responded, no sense showing any hurt from that, it wasn't like she expected much anyway, she didn't have to make friends with every person she came across.

"Either tonight or tomorrow after I get off my shift would work just fine." John said, seemingly eager to have a home-cooked meal. From just the slight glimpse she could see into the kitchen, she concluded that no cooking was done there other than to make tea and maybe a few small dishes.

"How about we do tonight? I have to get up early tomorrow...well earlier than usual so I'll probably be dead to the world when you get in from your shift. Like Italian?"

John nodded, "That sounds great. What time?"

"How about seven?"

"Works for me."

She gave a good-bye to John, and even one to Sherlock who already had his head back down looking through his microscope. As she left she could hear John already asking him 'would it kill you to be nicer to her?' It was actually amusing.

She looked at her watch, plenty of time left before seven. Dinner would be easy, but would take awhile to simmer. She was just happy to have someone to cook for. She cooked with her Mom a lot, even more when she got sick-then living with her Dad she really didn't cook as much, but still enough to stay sharp in the kitchen-but there was really no one to appreciate it. Everyone was always so busy.

But now it seemed like she had a good start on a decent friendship, John Watson her first friend in the big city (outside of Mrs. Hudson of course!).

With her coat tugged on she headed out the front door with a smile on her face. Today was a better day.

* * *

His phone rang. Good news or bad? It was usually one or the other, especially on that particular phone. He wasn't too busy at the moment, no one would peek in to catch the conversation...whatever it may be. He propped himself behind a desk, legs kicking up not caring about any dirt that landed from his shoes onto the papers scattered around.

"Yes?"

"We have a name on the girl sir." Ah, so it was that kind of phone call. Good news all around. "She 'ad boxes comin' in yesterday we were able to get a look at."

Couldn't be too suspicious just yet, anyone caught rifling around Baker street would get noticed-he didn't want them to be noticed yet.

"...and?" Get to the POINT people. Why was everyone ever so slow?

"Uh, her name is Madeline O'Brien."

Cute.

Oh Madeline O'Brien whatever are you doing at Baker Street? It was oh so fun when someone new entered the game without even knowing it.

"Keep an eye on her, but remain distant. If anything interesting pops up, do let me know."

And then he terminated the call, no sense keeping one of his goons on the phone for any longer than he had to. With a few quick keystrokes he had sent the name to another person who would find out everything there was to know about this girl.

"Should be interesting, any way it turns out."

* * *

It was seven on the dot when John knocked on Maddie's door. The lovely part about having dinner with her would be the fact that he didn't have to leave the house at all. By four it had started raining, and it was a blessing to know that to visit Maddie he wouldn't have to go out in the rain.

Of course, he had the entire day to reflect upon meeting the younger woman for dinner in her flat. She was nice, but young-too young for him honestly. He wondered, for most of the day in fact if she had expected this to be some kind of date instead of just a 'thank you' for helping her with the boxes. He thought about how to break it to her that he would only want to be friends, while he showered and got ready. Thought about how he could bully any future boyfriends for her, while he dressed for the night.

He was thinking so much it had annoyed Sherlock completely-who left the flat, not caring at all about the rainstorm that had settled in. Leaving John to wonder how his inward thinking could annoy the man so much.

The door was answered near right away, he could hear her running up the steps. When the door opened he smiled, she looked so happy to see him. When was the last time someone looked at him like that? "Hi John, come on in!" He followed her down the stairs, shutting her door on the way down.

Her hair was wavy and down, clothing had been changed since the morning-dark tights and a green sweater dress that stopped at her knees. She looked like she changed for comfort, but still wanted to be seen outside of her normal baggy clothes. It was a good change in his mind.

With the dark lingering outside, she had nearly every light turned on, the pain of living in the basement he figured. It took a moment for the smell to hit him, but when it did he was grateful he hadn't eaten a large lunch. "Wow, that smells wonderful."

She grinned, moving over to her stove to stir something in a pot. "Thank you, it's nice to cook for someone. Usually I make enough for myself and a small army and have to freeze a ton of portions."

"I gave up on cooking. Sherlock insists on keeping bloody eyeballs in the fridge...among other body parts."

She frowned at that, obviously having distaste for it as well. "Guess it would be too much to ask him to get his own mini fridge for that stuff. Hey, would you like something to drink? I have water, coffee, tea, beer, wine, and some juice boxes."

"The juice boxes are tempting, but I think a beer would be lovely."

She nodded and went to rummage in her fridge, she brought out a bottle and popped the cap off, handing it to him before she went to busy herself by opening up a bottle of white wine. "Take a seat anywhere you'd like, dinner will be done in a few minutes."

He nodded, taking a long pull of his beer and pondering if he should ask some of his mates down to the pub soon. It had been ages. He sat at the table, which already had two plates and other necessities on it.

It looked nice, even had a candle…

And she did look quite nice too.

Effort being put into the dinner.

"Maddie?"

She turned away from the stove, there was a wooden spoon in one hand and a wine glass in the other. Now or never, don't want to give the wrong idea.

"I just want to make sure that...uh...y'know, this isn't...I mean, I'm not...you're great...but…"

Oh yeah, this was going over well.

A blush crept up her neck and spread over her face, at first she bit her lips and then she just smiled. She put down the wooden spoon, and headed over to the table with him. She sat, and smiled.

He felt stupid. He'd been reading more and more into situations since Sherlock entered his life, unfortunately for him-he didn't seem to get it right this time.

"I can understand where you would get that idea, but honestly I just wanted to thank you for helping me with boxes, and being kind to me. I'm married to my work. I just...want friends right now." She had the look of someone who was being careful with their words, she frowned though apparently not quite happy with what she was saying. "I mean, you're quite handsome."

"I was just being an idiot."

"No you weren't John, you were reading into the situation-if you were the one to invite me to dinner I probably would have had to do the same thing. If we're going to be friends we have to be on the same page right?"

He nodded, happy to have that over.

She took a sip of her wine, "And since we're going to be friends, how about I let you pick out a record-I never let people do that."

She pointed towards a record player that was stationed near one of her book cases on a small table, with a collection of albums organized under it. "Well, music does say a lot about a person. Let's see what this friendship has in store!"

* * *

It took John awhile to find an album to his liking. Her albums were only organized by color, nothing else-which made it a little erratic. All sorts of music, from classical to modern. In the end, as she was draining the pasta he had placed her Eric Clapton record on.

"Good choice!" She called out, mixing the noodles in a pan that had already been simmering a cream sauce with tomatoes, basil, and garlic.

"Interesting collection."

"Influence and an open mind helped my music collection." She told him, as she pulled a loaf of bread out of the oven. As a child it was all classical, even gospel-some of which she still had. As a teen she was left with the rebellion music, especially with her father who even put some of that music in her hands (much to his regret on the nights she was upset and loudly spinning discs in her room). Her twenties left her striving for her own self, which made the collection more erratic with hip hop, folk, and a few odd Gregorian chanting monk albums.

A few more minutes of chit chat and she had the food moved to the table, his beer exchanged for a fresh one, and her wine topped off-even tossing a strawberry in it for good measure. She wasn't always a drinker, but some nights it just seemed warranted to enjoy a good wine or beer.

"This is… a lot of food." John seemed a bit floored by the sheer amount of food she brought to the table, and to be fair she was too. It had been awhile since she cooked for someone. A salad, bread freshly warmed with dipping oil and herbs, the pasta with shavings of cheese on top, as well as artichokes with butter sauce to dip into.

"I...yeah...I like to cook."

She did, she loved it. It was relaxing, it had been a fun afternoon to cook with purpose for someone. She was serving him, it came naturally-she did it with her dad too when he was out of the workshop. John just looked amused, and happy-he looked happy. Less tired tonight compared to when she had bumped into him previously. "Thank you Maddie, really. This is great. Mrs. Hudson likes to cook for us on occasion too, but this is something that could come out of an Italian restaurant."

She beamed, it wasn't hard to tell that Maddie craved compliments-that were true, not the off hand 'oh you're pretty' comments. The real compliments that meant you spent time with her and could see her at her best, that's what she liked. It came from her childhood, and while her dad tried his best, she still was half starved for the attention sometimes.

"I'm glad you like it, I'll pack up some left-overs for you if you dare put them in your morgue." She poked fun, curling her legs under her as she sat at the table.

It was lovely. This was her first true friend, made by herself. Quite sad really if you thought about it. Sure she made friends, and had friends-but they were all due to her dad, even Mrs. Hudson. It didn't help that she spent the majority of the last couple of years just figuring herself out, therapy was her friend. Now she was out there, making friends. This was her dream.

She felt silly for crying the night before. Sure, she missed certain things from home, but this-watching as John enjoyed her food, laughing together-this was perfect.

Time had ticked by, as it tended to do. Plates were cleared and talk was made. It was fun to find out about him, he had been in the Army (which honestly was something she wouldn't have guessed), he had only moved in to his flat a few months previous, things about his sister, and stories about growing up. It was interesting.

She shared too, slightly. Her life as Maddie O'Brien could be whatever she wanted it to be but the simpler she kept it the better. Certain things were edited, but kept as similar as possible-Dead mom, cancer. Step-dad off doing who knows what (only a slight lie). Real dad came into the picture after the death of her mom. John didn't press, which was nice. Family talk was short, and most of their dinner conversation was spent sharing funny stories.

"Let me help, it's the least I can do." John had told her as she started to put left-overs in different tubs and prepped her sink to wash.

"How about I wash, and you dry. You can find out where I keep all my dishes so you can help yourself when you visit." A smile, she was warm and happy. Possibly some of that was the wine, but most of it was just being happy.

"I'm rubbish at washing, so drying it is!"

* * *

They were laughing and singing to a Duran Duran record that had been put on, dancing around the kitchen when Sherlock made his appearance. He didn't knock, he just barged in and walked down the stairs like he owned the place. Maddie and John didn't even realize he was there until John dipped her while they were both singing "Her name is riooooooo".

John nearly dropped her.

She could feel the doctor go a tad rigid, as if he was already working out ways to apologize to her for his friend just waltzing in. Sherlock was busy looking around her flat to really notice their dismay at seeing him.

"What are you doing here?" John was the first one to speak, while Sherlock continued to analyze. She wondered what he thought of her now, what he could deduce from her home. What did her choice of a chocolate almond torte on the counter, with slices half eaten say about her?

"It's almost midnight." Sherlock stated, frowning. As if he was unamused at the fact he had to explain himself.

Maddie was floored, dinner had started at seven, and between talking, drinks, eating, cleaning, drinks, dessert, dancing around...the time had went by quickly.

That's when it hit her why he came down-their music had been playing rather loudly. It wasn't soothing classical violin, it was 80s love ballads. She cringed slightly, "Sorry, we got carried away."

"I can see that." His eyes raked over them, lingering where John had his hands (all in appropriate places, as if she would even let him get near anywhere that wasn't-even as just friends). It was easy to see the conclusion that the detective was coming to.

John had moved away from Maddie, with Rio finishing in the background Sherlock moved to investigate her bookcases.

"Should turn this off, poor Mrs. Hudson having to put up with it." Maddie moved to turn the music off for the night.

"I didn't realize it was almost midnight, I'm sorry if I overstayed my welcome." John, ever the apologetic.

"Oh don't be silly, if it wasn't for Sherlock we would have probably lasted another three hours." She proclaimed with a smile.

"Why do you have these books? They should be in a museum or library, not...here."

Maddie blinked at Sherlock's sudden tone change, it went from annoyance to being kept up (or disturbed), to deep and menacing...over books.

She was that way too sometimes, but it didn't mean she liked the way he asked her. As if she couldn't have books. As if it meant something bad. "I work with them, that's why they are here."

"Told you Maddie's smart Sherlock." John said, the last of the sentence muffled due to him finishing off a piece of torte.

She smiled at that. At least someone saw her value.

"Data entry." Was all Sherlock said, his finger skimming the spines that were on display.

"Translation." Maddie countered back, a smug grin on her face.

"Suppose it could be considered a form of data entry if you're sending that information to a boss?" Sherlock turned, a smirk on his face-completely destroying her smug look. "I'm still right."

"Not about everything."

It was a staring contest. Passing moments as he looked at her, and judged her. She knew that was what he was doing-he wasn't just deducing her, he was judging her. Down to the very fabric she wore, to the blush on her face from the wine, to the slippers she had put on that had cow faces on them. It felt like hours went by before his blue eyes blinked away to look toward John. "Maybe you're starting to pick up on a few things, it seems you are correct in your view of our new neighbor."

Judgement, good? Did she pass? Maybe. John look floored. She wondered what Sherlock saw in her just then. It couldn't just have been finding out she translated old books to make him think she was smart. What was it? Certainly, wasn't getting tipsy and singing in her kitchen with John.

Either way she figured that it was a start.

Sherlock retreated shortly after admitting that John was right, and she was smart. Or at least, smarter than Sherlock initially thought. When he realized that she wasn't mad or put out, John smiled and shrugged.

"It's just how he is."

"I'm not too worried about it, I suppose when you're like him you wonder about people you share your home with...and your friends with." She smiled, a shrug. One last sip of her wine, finishing it off. It had been a nice night, interruptions and all.

"This was really nice." He said, they were reaching the awkward point of things-already agreeing to be friends, not like there was a coat for him to grab or for her to wish him a safe ride home. He was technically already home...just in a different part of it.

"We should do it again. I like cooking." And she did, she could easily see this becoming some kind of routine.

"Well, I do like eating. I will be down for those left-overs too!" He reached the door, she had followed him up the stairs to lock it after he left. "Maybe next time I can help you shop, or do something useful...I'm pretty good with a knife."

It was that last statement that stopped Maddie in her tracks.

'I'm pretty good with a knife' it repeated in her head like an echo.

Ignore it. Ignore it, she ordered herself-pushing down all those bad feelings.

It had been a good day, she wasn't going to let a memory ruin it.

"Then I suppose you'll be on chopping duty!" She chimed, which was followed by a yawn-the voice still echoing in the back of her head. It wasn't like John knew. Not like she planned on telling him, or anyone in her new life about what had happened.

I'm pretty good with a knife…

Deep breath, no toxic thoughts (something that her therapist had helped her with for years). She turned her thoughts to how great the night had been, how John was awkwardly standing in her doorway still, how he was inches taller than her, how fun it was to find out he enjoyed Duran Duran too.

"Well, I think it's well past our bedtime." She said, a cheeky grin on her face.

"I suppose it is. Thank you Maddie, truly."

"Anytime John!" One awkward pause, and a lunge followed-she hugged him. She was not a big hugger, and despite everything that had happened, it was men she hugged more often than not. Her dad, and her boss were usually the recipients of her touchy feely moments. Now John was too, possibly the wine, possibly how much fun the night was, or maybe it was because John didn't talk to her like he expected some kind of amazing genius. He just...talked to her.

It was nice.

Having a friendship...it was very nice.

And as she watched him vanish towards his own flat, she remembered one crucial thing.

She had to be up at 4AM the next day.

Wonderful.


	4. Chapter 3

**Fade Into You**

**Rating: R**

**Notes:** I had meant to get this up a lot sooner. This chapter was fickle to write-one of those filler chapters that you kind of need, and are fun to read-but writing them is like pulling teeth. Hopefully it was worth the wait for you!

* * *

**Chapter Three:** Truce

"Wake up."

"Don't make me be mean to you. Wake up!"

"Fine."

There was silence for a moment. Sherlock had been awake for the last half hour, he had been laying in bed thinking about a recent experiment when he started to hear the noise from the air vent. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he did change his position in bed so he could hear better.

"One more chance to wake up the easy way Madeline."

The voice was crystal clear, a slight accent that had been subdued its best over time and training. He was mildly interested in what was going on downstairs. Madeline didn't seem like she had an early morning appointment (at least she hadn't been acting like it considering she was dancing like a fool with John in the middle of the night). He didn't think she had many friends here yet either. To be honest he wasn't paying that much attention to the girl, even last night after finding out she was a little smarter than he had originally deduced. Smart people existed, didn't mean he had to rush off to look into every aspect of her life.

He couldn't help but be curious though, with the voice. He craved a good mystery and there were no current cases to work on. Therefore his reasoning was sound, lay in bed and listen to the conversation, find out more about his neighbor, maybe have something to use against her in the future. Simple.

He regretted inching even closer to where he could hear better when there was a sudden splash of water followed by the shrek of someone being rudely awakened.

He would also deny if anyone asked, that he had to bite his lip in order to avoid laughing loudly at that noise. Well, that certainly was amusing. Close relationship he figured, between the voice and Madeline. Most people wouldn't douse just anyone with water in the morning. Impatient person, annoyed with Madeline not being awake at four in the morning-which lead him to wonder why she would have to be awake so early. On days that he had noticed her, he didn't seem to notice her leaving or coming back to her apartment in those early hours.

"You are so mean." He heard Madeline say, followed by a sigh and the sound of something wet hitting the floor (probably a blanket or pillow).

"I tried to do it the easy way first, but someone was dead to the world." There was a pause, noise of water dripping (Madeline ringing her long hair out?).

"Well I'm awake now, thank you."

"You're welcome, change into this. We're going to run to the gym."

"How far away is it?"

"Not far."

"Nat, how far away is it?"

"Four miles. Better hurry, we have a lot to work on…"

"Oh, just four miles-wonderful. That will be so much fun, I can't wait."

There was a huffy noise, stomping, and a door creaking shut. Sherlock strained his ears to listen, but it seemed as if both women had moved out of the bedroom. With silence falling, he grabbed his dressing gown, and headed out to the living room.

John was still sound asleep, and would be for another several hours. The sky was still dark, with only slivers of light on the horizon. He approached the window, watching and listening. Waiting to observe who would walk out with Madeline.

It didn't take long before he watched as Madeline jogged out with a woman who was a few inches taller (but in the end, everyone seemed taller than Madeline). The woman had red hair, darker and obviously dyed, pulled into a braid. An all black running suit clung to her body, shapely-not a waif, obviously muscular. A trainer? Madeline sported nearly the same outfit, only hers was a dark blue, and had full sleeves-the other woman had half sleeves. Even in the cold fall if they were really running four miles, it was practical to go sleeveless.

Sherlock realized he had never seen Madeline out of sleeves, everything from her overly large sweaters to the sweater dress the night before had sleeves.

Curious.

He stood at the window, watching them without a care. The flat was still dark, and they were moving away from Baker Street-unlikely to look back. Madeline was keeping time with the woman, although it looked like the woman was holding back her stride.

So, what did he know? Madeline, a twenty-something girl with a wealthy father, never out of sleeves, first time away from home, translation work with languages, very smart but not willing to always show it, and now a personal trainer?

Maybe it was time to do a little breaking and entering.

* * *

It was only eight AM and Madeline wanted to die. They were putting a weeks worth of self defense learning into one very early morning. Didn't help that she stayed up late, drinking and eating with John. She would admit, she didn't expect for Natasha to dump ice cold water all over her face in order to wake her up.

Her Tuesday morning so far consisted of running four miles, which took her more time than she would care to share. They did stretches at the gym for what seemed like hours, followed by falling exercises, mostly it was Natasha fake punching (and once accidentally hitting her due to a horribly timed sneeze on Maddie's part), and Maddie rolling to take the hit. It was easy to fall into the pattern. When eight AM rolled around they had a break.

The break was spent with Maddie holding an ice pack on her eye and Natasha taking a picture of her handy work (it WAS funny after the initial pain went away). They chatted and caught up with each other, Maddie still didn't know a lot about the women-she knew she was dangerous, knew she worked for SHIELD, and knew her Dad trusted her. She had came to work for him a few years previous, undercover.

Maddie liked the woman, she was a hard-ass while training, but was great for just talking to. Maddie figured most people didn't talk to Natasha like a normal person-she could be intimidating to say the least. Their conversation ranged, from work talk (at least what wasn't confidential), talk about her neighbors, to even the best kind of Vodka she should invest in.

"Hey, Nat-is there something I should be worried about?" She asked, as they were headed back to the main area of the gym to work on her punches. It was a question that had been lingering ever since finding out that she would be spending so much time on self defense, it seemed...extreme.

The woman looked at Madeline for a moment, a long hard stare before letting herself answer. "Tony just wanted to make sure you could take care of yourself. I know you've been training off and on over the years, but now that you're on your own, a significant jump in learning is a good idea. This is the only time he could reserve this gym for as well, I think he knew you wouldn't be pleased if he built a gym just for this."

"Really? That's all?"

"Look, Kid-bad things happen, you know that, I know that-you might not be known here, but you never know. Some asshole could find out who you are and decide to kidnap you for ransom or something. The more we train the more we can avoid that."

Maddie nodded with a deep breath in, her muscles were already sore, her eye felt too warm from where she did quite literally run into Natasha's fist. "Okay, fair enough."

She knew it was something for her own good, knew it was when she started to train in her late teens, and she supposed sometimes she still thought of herself as a normal girl. And normal girls didn't have to worry about being kidnapped, normal girls didn't have to worry about holding their own.

Normal girls didn't have to worry about how sore they were only a few hours into a six hour work out.

* * *

It took Sherlock less than five minutes to break into Maddie's flat. It was twenty-five minutes after she departed on her run with the other redhead. He had changed into his usual attire, not wanting to break and enter with a dressing gown billowing around him.

It was almost too easy to gain entrance. He closed and locked the door behind him, immediately hit with the smell of cinnamon. The night previous Italian herbs and garlic scented her flat, today it was cinnamon. As he made his way down the stairs, he turned on the nearest lamp illuminating the flat with dim light.

How tragic it was to live in a basement flat-hardly any natural light.

Now he could have a proper look around without her staring at him. In his mind this was perfectly acceptable behavior. He held a great responsibility for Baker Street and those that shared the space; Mrs. Hudson and John namely. A newcomer needed to be assessed, and since he wasn't busy with a case it was time to look.

Especially since there was more to this girl than he originally thought.

The flat was clean, not just because she had John over the night before. She was generally a clean person. There was no dust anywhere. Obsessive. Things were out of place here and there, so not compulsive.

He decided to start in the most obvious place, her bedroom.

Light switch on, he stood in the middle of the room. A glance up let him see the vent that allowed him to hear everything that went on in the room. There was a wet spot on her pillow, from where she was rudely awakened. Blankets were plush, high quality, everything in the flat was high quality so far. He was clearly right in the fact she came from wealth.

He took a moment to open and glance into her closet. It was a mess, a shoebox fell out onto the floor in front of him. Cared about appearances, but when it came to behind closed doors she didn't care-thus the disarray of her bedroom. Blue eyes scanned her clothes that were hanging up, sleeves, sleeves, more sleeves.

What was she hiding?

Outside of that, the clothes of lesser quality were worn the most. She had nice things, very nice tailor made shirts and slacks-but they were not worn much. Curious. Perhaps in her working from home she sometimes had to make trips into the home office, or be presentable for someone.

He returned the shoebox to the mess, and continued on with his looking.

Nothing of note in the bathroom, shampoos and bath products told him where the cinnamon scent came from. The bathroom was completely redone and nice-much nicer than the upstairs flat. Money went into this, and it certainly wasn't Mrs. Hudson's doing.

There was nothing in the medicine cabinet to tell him anything, no prescription pills (odd in the day of over prescribing). There was a bottle of perfume (Miss Cherie, Dior), a ridiculous amount of bobby pins and other hair clips, and one single bottle of gummy vitamins (childish).

Her kitchen was well used and organized for the short time she had lived there. She liked to cook, liked using fresh ingredients, and spent money on childish things like brightly colored ice cream, candies, and cereals. Her fridge was roomy, he could probably fit some thumbs in there without her noticing…

Sherlock shook his head, and moved away from the fridge. The only thing her kitchen told him, was that she liked to eat, and had a few childish addictions. Easily put away as being a spoiled child, never growing out of that. Sure there could be other reasons, but her being a wealthy child was the probable cause.

He should know.

The rest of the flat was all books, records, this and that. He went through everything, and all he came up with was:

She had no personal photos, strange for someone who had a seemingly close relationship with her father.

She loved her job, it was her life. Much like his life revolved around investigation and solving crimes, her life revolved around books and translating. Not only that, but she was good at it.

She played piano, but there was no telling how good or how bad she was at it. The keyboard was a new and expensive model, no wear or tear-bought specifically for the small space of the flat. She hadn't played it yet. There was no sheet music around, so she was either very good and memorized her material, or she wanted a new hobby and had yet to invest any time into it.

She had a television, it was small-when he turned it on it showed that her last choice in viewing was a twenty-four hour news station. Boring. Her DVR was filled with panel shows, an obvious new addiction since moving.

It was frustrating; looking around the flat of someone who had recently moved in. There was enough time for her to unpack everything, but there were obvious missing pieces.

His frustration wasn't helped by her locked laptop, he tried a few different passwords, anything he could think of from only knowing the girl very briefly-and nothing, absolutely nothing came of it.

By the time he was done looking around he came to the conclusion, that this girl would not be a threat to Baker Street, she was a well off person but didn't want to outwardly flaunt it (there were nice things in the flat, but she still lived in a basement flat instead of a penthouse somewhere). She loved her father but wanted to have her own life, and was struggling with putting away childish notions for a more grown-up agenda. Her job was her passion, and she was good at it. She liked to cook and he would put money on her at some point making biscuits for everyone at 221.

In short, she was a nice young wealthy American. She was smart, and that could be useful to him.

Therefore he decided, it would be appropriate to let her stay. (Because let's be completely honest, if he didn't want her there he could find a way to make sure she left).

* * *

Her legs were like jelly and she wanted to die. Maddie was smart, she could benefit more from short bursts of training instead of daily sessions-but this was ridiculous, even if she was being trained by the best of the best. Self defense was great, but she was pretty sure she'd wet herself before she would remember to go for the solar plexus.

There were some things to enjoy about the morning of course. She was able to see Natasha again and catch up, some of the training (namely learning how to fall) had been fun, and after the pain wore off it was actually really funny that she got a true punch to her eye from a badly timed sneeze.

Even in her workout gear, covered in sweat, and now sporting a blossoming black eye she stopped in Speedy's to get lunch. Her stomach was growling and all she wanted for the rest of the day was a gigantic sub, chips, maybe a batch of cookies. This would be followed up by a horribly long bubble bath with her laptop propped up on her toilet playing old episodes of QI. Oh, it sounded glorious.

By the time she unlocked the door to her flat, her mood was better. She felt less like dying, and more like stuffing herself silly. Maddie was halfway down the stairs when she noticed something was off, even in her preoccupied mind (singing a song to herself about how her sandwich was going to be wonderful) she knew something was wrong.

Her lights were on. Her lights were not on when she left. This was mildly concerning. She stood halfway down the stairs for a moment weighing her options. Probably, she didn't flip the switch hard enough and the lights stayed on. Worst case scenario is she was going to be throwing her sandwich at some intruder (what a waste).

So she walked down, as casually as possible. It was her own flat after all.

What she saw, was not what she had expected.

Sitting at her kitchen table, was the well dressed Sherlock Holmes with three different microscopes in front of him. He had a cup on his left hand side (not one of hers) with a tea string hanging out, looking as if it was cold and forgotten. How long had he been there?

"Sherlock?"

She didn't know if she should be worried, upset, or amused at finding him in her flat. No answer, his head was still bowed down with his attention on the center microscope.

"Sherlock?!" A bit louder this time.

No movement. He was gone. Just like her dad, when he was busy working on his own projects. She stomped the last few feet until she was at the table. His notebook was filled with a beautiful scrawl (more impressive than her own handwriting), and there were all different kinds of slides littering her table.

She set her bag of food down at the table, hoping the noise would bring him out of his thoughts.

No, of course it didn't.

She didn't feel comfortable touching him, shaking his shoulder, or prodding him. So, yet again. "Sherlock?"

"Sherlock?"

"Mr. Holmes!"

"Sherlock?"

Finally he looked up, blue eyes squinting at the change in light between her dim flat and the microscope. He looked more annoyed than she was at the fact he was in her home uninvited. His mouth was in a tight line, as if waiting for her to ask the magical question. She wasn't dumb after all.

"Why are you here?"

"Light sensitive project upstairs, all light must be kept out of the flat. Therefore leaving me with no place to continue my research. Mrs. Hudson's table is too small, last night I noted that yours is the perfect size. I noticed you were out, therefore I let myself in."

Her mouth hung open. Really? She did not know how to compute that in her brain. Here was a strange man (or was he? He wasn't overly pleasant, but he did work with the police and John after all) who let himself into her flat while she was gone. He was obviously in no hurry to hide the fact he was there, and she assumed if he had been called away on business she still would have came in to find that her table was covered in his science experiments.

"I really have no idea what to think." Was all she could muster.

Maddie, for all of her intelligence had a problem. This problem was simple; she had a heart. With her heart she could easily forgive, or easily forget hurts. She could see past the obvious annoyance of Sherlock breaking and entering her flat for the understanding that he wanted a place to work, and really it's not like there was any real harm done. He was just quietly sitting at her table, even if he did snoop around (which she figured he would-if she were him she would) it wasn't like he would find anything too interesting. So, instead of being peeved or upset she just shrugged. "Ok. Are you hungry?"

He looked a little shocked. She wasn't mad, she wasn't putting up a fight, she wasn't ordering him out of her flat. "No." Was the answer he gave, he wasn't hungry. Right now the only thing he felt was curiosity. He looked her up and down, and his eyes stayed on hers for a moment. "Your eye is discolored."

She moved around, on the half of the table that wasn't littered with his stuff she unpacked her food. Sandwich, check. Large bag of crisps, check. Container of soup, check. Large sugary soda, check. "Poorly timed sneeze." She told him simply as she headed to grab a plate and bowl.

"Have you put ice on it?" He asked, she refused to look at him because she knew exactly what he was doing, looking at her to see if her body language gave away anything else. Right now she figured all it gave away was exhaustion.

"Of course, and I'll put more on it later. Haven't even had a proper look at it, when I left the gym it wasn't that bad." She explained, unwrapping her sandwich and making her plate. She bought enough for at least three meals.. "What exactly are you working on right now?" She asked, curious.

"How the different blood types react to certain temperatures and other stimuli."

Weird. Okay, whatever. No weirder than her poring over ancient texts or the fact her dad was a man who flew around in a suit of armor.

"Well, okay then. Here's the thing: I would really appreciate it if you didn't just break into my flat without telling me. I really don't care that you are here. If this was some test to see how I'd react, there you go. If you're just really here to work, feel free-but I'm not going to adjust what I'm going to do the rest of the day because you are working."

"That sounds fair."

"Also you can't store stuff down here, when you're done you take it up to your flat. This also means no putting body parts in my fridge. John told me about your fridge-I don't want to have my lettuce mixing around with toes."

She glanced at him while she poured soup into her bowl, it was steaming, cheesy, and probably awful for her-but after the workout she had, she really didn't care. He looked pleased with himself. As if this was how it was supposed to go all along, he'd suddenly be tolerable and thus gain a workspace. Honestly she didn't care that much, it was nice to have someone around.

"What if I'm required to rush out, shall I still bring my projects upstairs and waste valuable time or shall I leave them here?"

He had thought this out. He knew she was going to be okay with it, and took advantage of it. She wondered if there really was an experiment upstairs or if SHE was the experiment. Either way, it would help John out too probably if Sherlock wasn't always doing his science projects in their flat.

She thought about this though, she didn't know a lot about him. She had him defaulted to "works with the police, so he must be good even if he was a bit...brash at first." but, she knew other people who worked for "good" but were really not that good at all. However, she felt as if she was making a decent choice. Mrs. Hudson loved him, John put up with him, and he worked for the cops-so all in all? Probably not a horrible idea to allow him to work there.

"Leave it, if it really is a pressing case-leave it. However, I reserve the right to move your things if they are in my way. Also, if you start being awful about this and taking advantage of it I will make it harder for you to break in."

"Is that a challenge?"

"If it needs to be." She countered. It would actually probably be fun to make it to where it was a challenge for him to enter her flat.

"I think this arrangement will be fine." He told her, and she nodded. Yeah, it wouldn't be that bad. If she was honest she was worried about how lonely she felt during the day alone in her flat-and having Sherlock around randomly (as well as John, as well as her training with Natasha) would help. Help keep her from feeling home sick or lonely.

"Well, I'm going to eat and sprawl out on the sofa." She said, a shrug.

He nodded.

And that was that.

For the next hour Sherlock had his head down at his microscope while she watched television and ate. By the time she felt full, and rested a full hour had went by. She could feel her muscles stiffening up and wondered how awkward it would be if she went to bathe with Sherlock in her flat.

He seemed deeply into his research. Giving her the time to fully look him over, he was intense. Her dad loved his research, loved keeping his mind going, but also loved his downtime. Sherlock had no downtime it seemed, and he also had a level of intensity that she had never found before.

She shrugged, he was completely unaware. Maddie took care of her dishes, placing them in her sink and wrapping up her left-overs. She thought to offer Sherlock food again, but decided against it. He was a grown man, he would eat when he was ready-and if not, if he was still there in a few hours? She'd put something in front of him.

She poured a little wine in a glass, grabbed her laptop, and headed to her bathroom. This was her home and she'd do what she want, regardless of Sherlock sitting at her kitchen table.

* * *

John had a busy day. If it wasn't one thing, it was another when it came to work. Thankfully, having an early shift meant he at least had a reasonable amount of afternoon left. He was looking forward to being home, maybe blogging a bit about their most recent case. Life was rather mundane when they weren't solving cases.

Once he arrived at his door, he realized that blogging that night would not be in the agenda. There was a note taped up to the door of their flat upstairs. It was on a piece of paper that had been torn in half, and upon closer inspection he realized it was the electric bill. Of course.

**John: Downstairs at 221C. Flat is to remain dark until 8PM, DO NOT ENTER.**

"Bloody ridiculous." He muttered to himself as he trudged back down the stairs to Maddie's flat. He wondered how awful it was for her to have Sherlock there for her. It wasn't like the man was warm and friendly, and John could only imagine what kind of motives Sherlock had for being downstairs.

When he knocked, there was no answer. He stood there for a moment, weighing his options. He wondered if this was all some elaborate trick of Sherlock's to make him look like a fool with Maddie. When he was about to rap at the door once more, his phone went off.

_Do come in. -SH_

Well, that answered that.

The door was unlocked, he could see light illuminating the stairway. There was very little noise, and he had to wonder if Maddie was even home, or at least aware Sherlock was in her flat. What he saw when he came down to the flat, wasn't something he was expecting.

Sherlock was at her table, microscopes and all. He was taking notes and moving his slides around. Maddie was in her kitchen, her hair was damp and pulled up. She was in pajamas (a tad early in the afternoon, but who was he to judge) that were dark black. Her hands were coated in cookie dough, which she was making and measuring out onto pans. That explained why she couldn't answer the door, explained why Sherlock simply texted.

"Good afternoon John! How was work?" She asked with a smile, as if this was not the weirdest situation to be in.

He stood, a bit flabbergasted at the moment. "It was okay…" He said, quite unsure of how to proceed.

"Make yourself at home, Sherlock told me about his experiment upstairs. You're both welcome to stay here. Are you hungry?"

He nodded, paused a moment, and then became suddenly aware with the light of the fridge that Maddie was sporting a black eye.

"Are you okay? What happened? Sherlock?" Everything seemed to come out at once, and he wasn't even sure what he meant. He was pretty sure he was inquiring about her black eye, and how Sherlock came to be in her flat all at the same time.

"I had a poorly timed sneeze in my self defense class this morning." She explained, a shrug. Maddie watched Sherlock for a moment and when he didn't seem interested in answering John she did for him, "I found him sitting at my kitchen table when I came home. Had a talk about breaking and entering and not putting any body parts in my fridge. I think we have an understanding...I think." It seemed like even she was confused by Sherlock.

She was popping the lids off containers from their left-overs that they had put away the previous night and placing them into the microwave for a fast warm up. Leaving traces of cookie dough here and there before realizing she needed to clean her hands.

John frowned at Sherlock and came into the kitchen with Maddie. Before she could say no, he had her chin in his hand, giving her eye a good hard look. He was a doctor after all. It probably felt worse than it looked, the area around her eye was discolored and dark but would quickly fade after the day to more interesting shades of purple and green. Her eye itself was bloodshot, but didn't look like it was damaged badly.

"Taken anything?"

"Pain meds at the gym, and I've had ice on and off of it today."

"You sneezed?" He wanted to clarify. Just to make sure, he hated the thought of a woman being hurt. Call it big brother instinct.

"It was meant to be a soft punch so I could lean back with the momentum and learn to recover. I sneezed and moved into the punch more than I should have."

"You need self defense?"

"I think every young girl on her own in a busy city needs it. I'll still probably wet myself, but at least I'll know what to do...eventually."

John nodded, laughed. Fair enough.

"Grab a drink, I'll get some plates made up. You'll have to sit on the sofa. Sherlock seems pretty...into it."

"He get's that way." He helped himself to a drink from her fridge, he would have preferred tea at the moment, but he didn't want to inconvenience her any farther. He opted for a juice box, he hadn't had one of those in ages. He took her advice and plopped down on the sofa.

She had a plate in front of him in moments, the same food from the night before with the addition of a side plate that had some fruit on it. "Healthy now, enjoy cookies later!"

He smiled, it was actually kind of nice to come home to something like this. He could get used to it. That was the problem, he could get used to it. Maddie was in no way a romantic interest, but she did remind him of how painfully lonely he was in that regard. Sherlock for adventure and friendship, Maddie for friendship and laughs, Mrs. Hudson for a mother figure, and...there it was, that missing peace. No worries though, he would find her. Chin up. Right?

* * *

It had been an hour since John had arrived. Her cookies had finished baking, and everyone (including Sherlock) had dinner. John had his feet up on her coffee table (shoes off after she scolded him) while he was watching the nightly news. Sherlock had continued to work, taking notes, mumbling to himself every now and again. Maddie had made herself a little area on the floor next to John, near the coffee table to do some work. She was sitting on a pillow, two books open in front of her, and a notebook in her lap that she was translating into-which would later be turned into a word document on her computer to send over to her boss.

It was all very, domestic. It reminded her of being home with dad and Pepper. Not that they always shared the same common space, but there was a comfort in knowing there were other people around. It was nice.

She had been so wrapped up enjoying working with people (friends?) around that she didn't realize her phone was going off. John nudged her with his foot, poking her in the ribs and causing her to jump quite a bit. "Okay, that was funny." He told her, smiling as her heart was racing a mile a minute from the sudden prodding. "Your phone was going off."

"Oh, thanks….jerk." She told him, playfully and he took it as such. She figured after being friends with Sherlock he could take a little bit of a joke.

She grabbed her phone and glanced through her messages. There were five, spaced out by two minutes even. Apparently she had been out of it to miss all of them.

_Black Eye? -Dad_

_Is it bad, I want to see, are you okay? -Dad_

_Natasha said it was funny. -Dad_

_What are you doing? -Dad_

_Bored. -Dad_

She checked the time on her phone, it was rapidly approaching evening hours so that meant that for her Dad it was either very early morning or early morning (depending if he was in Malibu or back in New York City again). Explained the boredom.

"John, can you take a picture for me?"

John looked up from the television, he looked sleepy. She barely slept the night before, her muscles were sore, and she still felt more awake than he looked. He nodded, "Sure what of?"

"My Dad heard about my eye and he wants to see it, y'know make sure it's not too bad. Probably feels guilty since he's the one that set up the training."

"Well it does look pretty awful, once I can get to the flat upstairs I have some cream we can put on that to help. Here give me your phone."

She moved into position, and did her best to smile for the camera. She was sure she looked awful, tired, messy damp-dried hair, pajamas. Last time she looked in the mirror her eye was quite black, and it certainly wasn't feeling good. He handed her phone back to her, "Thanks John, I can never take my own picture right."

_Here, it's not that bad. -Mads_

_A sneeze did all that? Ouch. Who is the guy? -Dad_

And that's when she looked back and realized that the picture she sent had Sherlock in the background, and he was in fact looking up at the camera. She looked back at him, his head was down now, but the picture had him staring at the back of her head as if trying to see through her. Great, another thing for her dad to constantly worry, ask, and complain about.

She thought about the best way to answer that, and frowned. She didn't have to answer to her dad anymore, that was one of the reasons she moved away after all. So it didn't matter how she answered it or who the guy was.

_Upstairs neighbor, he has something going on in his apartment right now so he's doing some work down here. -Mads_

_Boyfriend already? -Dad_

_Funny, really. I gotta go, translation due tomorrow morning. -Mads_

_Love ya kiddo. -Dad_

_You too -Mads_

And that was that. One of her weirdest days yet. She wondered if it would get any weirder or if this was it. Either way, she enjoyed it-her new life...it was nice-black eye and all.

* * *

**End Note**: Worth the wait? Review if you liked it!

Maddie is still growing, so it's interesting to see her interactions with her new friends. We'll see more of her history pop up here and there, but I don't want to give away too much right now. Let's just say one of her secrets is going to come back and bite her (and John) in the ass in the next few chapters. So we're going to see some action soon.

Hopefully the next chapter will come sooner! Thanks!


	5. Chapter 4

**Fade Into You**

**Rating:** R

**Notes:** Okay, a few weeks have went by since my last update. I got sick, then my husband was sick, so writing was not on the schedule. This chapter is one of the last before we see "The Great Game" start up. I will state again that it's going to get pretty dark. I can't write non-stop fluff, I like fluff but it can't be all I write. This chapter also totally took me by surprise with the way it ended. Enjoy and review! :D

* * *

**Chapter Four:** Sleeves

Maddie fell into a routine, one that was nice to have after the hectic lifestyle of being a Stark. Even with Sherlock around to sometimes drive her crazy it was still routine. In the last two months her life consisted of daily work, self defense on Tuesday (with Natasha only missing two weeks and her replacement being a large burly man named Clyde), Book club on Wednesday night where she didn't really make friends with anyone, but there had been good discussions at least (and the coffee shop did have really good muffins). Sometimes Sherlock would text her (per her rules) to let her know he was going to use her flat for his work, after the first time she never asked for a reason and he never gave one as to why he couldn't use his own flat. She assumed it was partially to give John a break (although she figured Sherlock would never admit it) and partially because he was curious about her.

Over the last two months John had spent a decent amount of time in her flat as well, mostly she figured because he liked her cooking, and also liked to get away from Sherlock. It was like she was a halfway house for the boys, when one was annoying the other, one of them would come down to visit with her for awhile. She didn't mind, it worked its way into her routine just fine. Most of the time when it was John that would visit he would storm into her flat (after checking with Mrs. Hudson and making sure they knew her ground rules she decided to let them have keys, mostly because it seemed like EVERY single time they knocked she would trip up the stairs, and that had gotten old fast), usually it would be after he finished his shift and he would be mumbling about just wanting a quiet night in.

It wasn't too hard to give him a quiet night in, she didn't mind it. For someone who had striven for her own independence away from her Dad she didn't seem to mind catering to her friends. Secretly (and of course she would never admit this) she really did love having them drop by, even when Sherlock would text at 4AM saying he would work at her table that morning. Usually when it was just her and John she would cook dinner, he would tell her about his day, about his girlfriend Sarah, and they would watch television together. Occasionally he would fall asleep on her sofa and she would tidy up, do some work, and eventually end up on-line. Most of the time he would wake up after an hour or two, say he was sorry and excuse himself. Only once he slept the entire night, in an awful position that made her feel bad for his neck.

When Sherlock swung by, it was less social. He would text her, at ANY hour and let her know he was going to use her space. Usually it was an ungodly hour and she just texted back a simple okay and went back to bed. He'd bring his own tea down, but would occasionally eat with her if she was making food. He would sit on one side of the table, and she would work on the other, translating. When he was being social he would ask her about her work, inquire about the language, and seemingly test her knowledge. Even fewer times he would ask her opinion on what he was doing, and seemed surprised when she answered back with intelligence.

It was nice, she was enjoying life. Even Mrs. Hudson would come down for tea sometimes, and one Sunday they did a bake off together, making all sorts of cookies (biscuits...she'd need to get used to that), cakes, and even a torte. It had been fun.

She would admit though, that she was pleased to wake up on a dreary day with no texts from Sherlock, no loud banging upstairs, and just the sound of rain hitting her windows. It was a Friday, and even though her work wasn't structured she still felt like Friday was a day to celebrate. End of the week, ready for the weekend. Maddie laid in bed for awhile, snuggled up in her blankets, and spending time figuring out how her day would go. Spend the morning working, send a request for more work since she had nearly finished translating most of the books she came to London with. After that she figured it would do her well to head out to the shop and pick up a few things, with it being so dreary she figured comfort food would be needed for dinner. She also had to pick up a gift to send back home to Pepper, her birthday was coming up.

Getting out of bed she decided it would be good to remind her dad.

**Mads**: Pick up something for Pepper, her birthday is next Thursday.

She didn't expect him to text back right away, morning for her was in the middle of the night for him. So wrapping herself up in a fuzzy robe she headed to the living room to get some work done.

When her phone buzzed an hour later alerting her to a text, she already went through two chapters of new material, had three cups of coffee, and was slowly working her way through a bowl of oatmeal. It was all very classy she was sure, her pajamas had robots on them (funny Christmas gift), she was now using the fuzzy blue robe as a blanket, and she knew for a fact (because she could feel it) that one side of her hair was a rats nest. Of course, being so classy meant that the text was not a response from her Dad but a text from Sherlock.

**SH**: Down in five.

She never minded if John burst into the flat, maybe it was because he was like an older brother. Sherlock though, she didn't like not having any warning. She tried to tell herself it wasn't some kind of crush that was starting, and that it was because she just didn't want him snooping around at all hours (at least she knew John wouldn't barge in at three in the morning). She tried to tell herself that she didn't just get up from her work to go brush her hair and change because he was coming down.

By the time she heard her door unlock she had combed her hair up into a messy bun, changed into a pair of well worn jeans with holes that had been patched up with lace, and a sweater that only an old lady would love. When he walked down into her flat, even though she tried to clean up her appearance for him, she still had a spoonful of cold oatmeal going into her mouth. It was okay, she didn't have a crush.

"Good morning Maddie." He didn't give any reason to be down there, but he did have a plastic bag that looked oddly like it was full of blood in one of his hands. He was doing his best to conceal it, he might have come off as being uncaring to others, but he at least seemed to respect her. She didn't have a high threshold for "body ick" as she put it to him so intelligently, and ever since she had told him that, he took care to at least try and hide some of the more obvious "body ick".

She swallowed the cold oatmeal she had shoveled into her mouth before she spoke, "Heya Sherlock. What are you working on today?"

He set his microscope down on the table across from her, which already had a few of his things (which just seemed to pile up over the last few weeks, even with their agreement that he wouldn't leave things down in her flat). "Acids"

Of course he wouldn't say more on the subject. Sometimes he didn't. Respectful didn't always equal friendly with Sherlock.

She just shrugged, and went back to her own work ignoring what he was doing with the blood across the table (although at least he was trying to be discreet).

It was less than fifteen minutes later when he spoke up again, "Has anything strange happened?"

She frowned, that was a weird question. "Uh, no? Like, what kind of strange?"

"Black cars and a strange man."

She blinked. Well, okay then that was a really off the wall thing to bring up. She wondered if he came down just to ask that question.

"No, I can't say that I've seen any." She wanted to add, 'unless I count you as a strange man' but that seemed too mean for her, even though it was a joke.

He nodded and that was that.

Until ten more minutes went by, "I just find it odd I suppose."

She looked up from her work, wondering what he was going on about. Clearly he had something on his mind. Apparently it had to do with strange men in black cars. Weird. She wondered if it had to do with a case.

"He contacted John in very short time of being in my company, I just don't seem to understand why he hasn't contacted you."

"Who?" She asked, now she was starting to get worried. Sure, she knew Sherlock and John ran around trying to solve murders and mysteries, but she didn't think it would end up with her getting involved.

"I consider him to be my...nemesis."

Of course, leave it to her to go from one man with a ton of Nemesis(es?- was there even a plural for that?) to another. Great. "Sherlock you're starting to scare me."

And that seemed to bump him out of his thoughtfulness, her being scared. "My brother had kidnapped John and tried to convince him for money to...report back to him on me." He explained, "It's just odd he hasn't done the same to you as well."

She couldn't help but laugh: brother. Okay, that kind of made sense. Sibling rivalry probably seemed like having a nemesis sometimes. "Oh, okay see that's better. I thought you had some kind of maniac after you."

He paused for a moment, but she didn't think much of it as she continued on "Unless your brother has video of the inside of the house I greatly doubt he knows we're even in contact that much." She shrugged and took the last congealed bite of her oatmeal. "I don't even think we've been seen outside together."

He nodded at that, and she wondered why it was bothering him. Perhaps he thought she did have a run in with his brother and she did accept the money. "Why is he wanting to keep tabs on you anyway?"

"Too many reasons to count, I'm sure."

And that was how he left it. For a few more minutes anyway.

She heard his phone go off, and shortly after he was asking her if she would WANT to be seen outside of Baker street with him.

Odd question.

She didn't know how to answer it. The day had went from her working, to musing about a possible crush (harmless, Sherlock wasn't the type to date-and she wasn't either-although that didn't mean she couldn't think he was handsome right?), to being asked about being a spy for his brother, to being asked to go out somewhere with him.

What?

He seemed to read her mind, or at least her expression. "That was St. Barts, I have some experiments going on there and thought you may be interested in accompanying me."

Her mind clicked, "And you want to see if being out in the open draws your brother to talk to me?"

He smiled, it was a wide smile, as if greatly pleased she understood his motives. She did, she understood a lot of his motives since day one.

"On one condition." She followed up, and he tilted his head with question as she was already starting to put her work away-as if she knew he'd say yes to this condition.

"Which is?"

"Don't take this as me agreeing to be a John when John isn't around." It sounded strange, but she knew he understood what she meant. She'd go to St. Barts with him, hoping his experiments didn't involve too much 'body ick' but that was it-she wasn't about to run around town solving cases with him.

He nodded, but still questioned "Why not? You're a curious person, I can tell - you look over my notes when you think I'm not paying attention and you get John to tell you about his stories from our cases."

She was bundling up with her coat,as she tried really hard to figure out a way to put it. It wasn't until Sherlock was by the door with her that she figured out how to put it as she was using him as a balance beam while putting on her shoes (much to his distaste). "There is a difference between asking about stories and getting that stuff first hand. I don't thrive on the action like you two do. I'm horribly passive. I know it must sound very dull to you, but I thrive with my books, with being behind the scenes."

"When you talk like that." He said, still oddly putting up with being held on to while she pulled her other boot on. "It makes it seem as if you've been apart of the 'action' before."

Before she knew it, she had went from holding on to him to Sherlock holding onto her wrist. She looked up at him, he was a great deal taller than her. "Perhaps I just know a lot of people who like action and I'd rather refrain from their lifestyle."

"Perhaps…" He trailed off, and she realized what he was doing only moments too late. Not only had he been taking her pulse, but his hand was slowly moving to push her sleeve up. By the time she noticed what he was doing her sleeve was halfway up her arm.

He frowned.

"What exactly were you expecting?"

"Nothing, forget it-there is always one thing that I'm wrong about."

He obviously wasn't expecting nothing, but he did pull her sleeve down, and moved away from her-already heading up the stairs presumably to grab his coat so they could be off without another word from her on that odd moment.

She wasn't dumb though, she knew what he was looking for. He nearly got it right when they first met-it wasn't an abusive boyfriend. It was an abusive step-father instead. She knew he was looking for some kind of reason for her to wear sleeves all the time, he had the drive to just KNOW everything about those that surrounded him.

The problem for Sherlock was Maddie had been very translucent with him-sure she wanted the odd friendship with him and John-but she also knew if she tried to hide herself and what she was like he would dig too deep. She hadn't been aware her always wearing sleeves had been a concern for him.

Maddie breathed a sigh of relief as she followed him up the stairs-because he was right to look under her sleeves, he just didn't push it high enough. While she could make up a lie, maybe even admit it was a previous boyfriend who had hurt her (even though she really never had a boyfriend before in her life) it was better in her mind that he didn't know she was ever hurt. That way he wouldn't look at her any differently.

Maddie was broken and glued back together by bits of therapy, a real Dad who did love her, and now good friends-and she didn't want Sherlock hammering at her new happiness. So she just breathed, smiled at him as she found him tugging his coat on in the foyer. "What were you wrong about with John?" She asked, all while trying to hide how shaky he had just made her.

"The drunk brother actually being a drunk sister."

And that was that.

* * *

Busy. That explained his life. Always so busy. However as he stood in a corridor of St. Barts he looked like he had all the time in the world. It was ever so hard to keep an interested and amused face plastered on as he listened to the dark blond prattle away. She was nothing in the grand scheme-which ultimately made her the best starting off point.

"Listen I have to get back to work, I have a few people on my wait-list to have their computers looked at...but…" He sang song, the lies dropping off his tongue-it had been ever so easy to pretend to work there. "Would you like to grab dinner tonight? We can keep this lovely conversation going then."

She smiled, of course she would-surrounded by dead people all day every day-she was going to jump at the opportunity. "I'm off at seven."

She gave him her address and they bid farewell. Had she been less trusting, had the building had fewer people on staff, she might have noticed that he didn't even work there. Everything worked to his favor though, and it looked as if he had a date that night. Wonderful.

As he was heading out his phone started to ring, a smile crossed his face. The beauty of technology was assigning ringtones, truly. He could have a ringtone for every single contact he had-which really did make life easy for him. In this instance he had a feeling that his afternoon (after fumbling around with a computer in the Morgue of St. Barts) was about to get a lot better.

"Almost fifty days." He said into the phone, pausing in a secluded corner.

"The information was well hidden. Didn't want to waste your time until there was something...amazing."

He smiled, biting his lip and rocking on his heels...oh yes, this would be good.

"Amazing? How amazing?"

"We know who she is, and how you can use her against him."

"I wasn't under the impression that they spent a lot of time together."

"It's amazing what you can see when people don't close their blinds at night. Looks like they are quite comfortable together working side by side in her flat."

Oh God...this…was...good. It was hard to deny the pleasure of knowing everything was better than he could have imagined it.

"So they spend time together...that I can work with later...now tell me before I get impatient-who is she?"

There was a pause and a deep breath on the other side of the phone which made him clench and unclench his left hand while waiting. This could be an interesting turn of events after all. Early on with all the construction at Baker Street then the appearance of the small women he had wondered if she inadvertently would join the game or if she would be boring. People usually are so boring.

"She's Madeline Stark, Tony Stark's daughter."

With his clenched fist he hit the nearest wall and gave a bark of laughter. Not boring at all. No. He might not have known a bunch of information about Tony Starks daughter-but he did know the man himself. How could he not? The crowned prince of weapon making turned into a man in a robotic suit flying around and saving the day? Oh, this was going to be good.

"I want every single piece of information you have on her sent to me within the hour."

And then he hung up.

"Oh...this is just going to be so much fun."

* * *

Things were quiet on the way to St. Barts and he was still trying to figure her out. She was quiet, and it wasn't because of the awkward moment near the staircase (which really he only took advantage of having a look at her arm because she was rudely using him as a human balance beam). She was quiet because she knew he didn't like frivolous conversation. She made no attempt to talk about the weather (dreary and cold), hunt for more information on his brother and family (John was always so curious about his parents "I just want to know who raised you and your brother, all I can think of is a stern librarian."), nor did she engage in being prepped over what to expect at St. Barts.

Out of the corner of his eyes he could see her, looking out the window, watching buildings pass and occasionally twisting her neck in an ungodly manner to see something better that had caught her interest. It was that which made him truly enjoy her company.

She was curious about the world, and could easily figure things out about situations and people too. Perhaps not as good as him, but if she put her mind to it and studied she would make for a great detective-yet she didn't WANT to. She actually requested not to be dragged around, not to be involved in the hunting of information and spending time at crime scenes. He actually found excuse after excuse the last few months to spend time at her flat simply because it was easier to work on some projects around her instead of John. She left him alone, if he spoke or asked a question she would reply. She stayed quiet and mindful, but also had the authority of being the owner of the flat-she would still watch her dreaded panel shows if she wanted to, would still disappear into the bathroom for an hour to take a bath and laugh (her laugh sounded like a cross between a giddy child and a goat) at whatever comedy show she decided to bring in with her. If he was there while she was making food, she wouldn't offer him any-but a plate always appeared next to him regardless. Sometimes he would eat it, sometimes he wouldn't-and she wouldn't put up a fuss.

Most of the time when he was there she would just work. Work for hours with her head buried in an old book, scribbling in a notebook, and occasionally complaining of a foot falling asleep (no matter how many times he told her how easy it would be to avoid having that happen).

And now what? With a fast (and ill thought out) idea he decided to bring her to St. Barts. He wanted to see if his brother would try to contact her (after all why wouldn't he? Sherlock in the company of a woman?). Maybe partly he just wanted to get out of the flat but still be in her company. She smelled good. Maybe he was just getting soft, first John, now Maddie, what was next-friendship bracelets?

They arrived at St. Barts with little fanfare. She slid out and was busy looking over the building while Sherlock paid the driver. "So this is where you and John disappear to?" Maddie asked, looking back at him as he came to stand behind her. It was a trivial question, and she seemed nervous.

Probably due to all of the 'body ick' that was in the hospital.

"Sometimes. Mostly when he is with me, if we come here it is very briefly while a case. Usually I come here to work on theories, preparation is key when it comes to how the body works in regards to certain situations."

She nodded, and allowed him to move past her to lead the way into the building. He took his time with his strides, there were cameras everywhere-multiple ways for his brother to be watching. Sherlock wanted to give him a good look of the women he was with. He was curious what Mycroft would do, his older brother went to extremes with John-and he was curious how Mycroft would be with Maddie.

Once they were in St. Barts, it was a mad house. It usually was quite hectic, but easily avoided considering where he wanted to go usually lacked a large population of live people. He felt a tugging on his coat, at his lower back, it was Maddie holding on as if worried to lose him in the crowd.

He rolled his eyes, he would never understand that panic-the panic that set into some people over hospitals. Sherlock wondered if this would be worth it, if dragging her along (and dealing with her own neurosis) was the best idea. If he really wanted to get his brothers attention he could have just taken her out for dinner.

But that would have been tedious, he was sure.

One more busy corridor to get through, then they would be at the morgue. He reached around, detaching her hand from the fabric of his coat and keeping his hand wrapped around hers.

"Sorry, I thought I was over this." Maddie said, sounding more annoyed at herself than the situation. Once he was holding her hand and leading the way, she seemed to keep up with him.

"Not a hospital fan?" He inquired, not quite interested but curious.

"My mother...it was cancer."

He remembered something then, she had told John about it. Long days spent in the hospital keeping her mother company. She was a teenager when it happened. Why did he keep that information in his head? He thought back, remembering that night-she had made some kind of Mexican dish (quite spicy if he remembered) and John and Maddie talked while playing Scrabble. It was so mundane, he was going to have to force that memory out of his head-it was far too...domestic.

But, looking back…

That had been a nice night.

"I'll be okay though, just bad memories. I'm interested to see what kind of projects you have going on here." She smiled at him, and he could see she was trying to push out the bad thoughts of her past and stay positive.

They were almost to the morgue when they ran into Molly. She looked as if she was just getting back from lunch. There were wrinkles on her lab coat from where she had been sitting on it in the cafeteria, a few crumbs stuck to the top of her shirt, she had yet to re-apply her lipstick-it was partially missing from using a straw to drink from.

"Oh h...hello." She noticed them before he had a chance to say anything. Her smile faltered a little bit when her line of sight fell on their hands. He was still holding onto Maddie. He hadn't even realized that.

"Hello Molly, came to check up on the projects I started yesterday-this is Maddie my downstairs neighbor, Maddie this is Molly."

It was a rather dry introduction, but it caused Maddie to drop his hand and shake Molly's hand. He clenched his empty hand for a moment, having to remind himself that he had only been holding onto Maddie's hand out of distaste for her attaching herself to his coat.

Sherlock Holmes certainly didn't like holding her hand…

Or did he?

* * *

The e-mail told him everything he would need to know about this women living at Baker Street. It only took a few moments for him to know what he would do, how he could add her in to the ongoing game already. It was just going to be so much fun. He had a new player involved, and if he played his cards right he would have another pawn working in his favor. It would just take some work.

There were several hours left until his date with Molly Hooper, which was the perfect amount of time to set his new plan in motion. He was re-reading the e-mail as he dialed out, the phone rang for an unfortunate number of times before the voice on the other end came on, "Hello?"

"Busy? Is this a bad time?" It was sarcastic, this man was paid to be at his beck and call. It didn't make him happy to have the phone ring so many times before it was picked up.

"No sir, sorry." They had a tentative agreement that was always bulging at the seams. He didn't like Sebastian, and Sebastian didn't like him. However they both had similar interests and alignments and at the end of the day Sebastian worked for him...barely it seemed. It was a bother. Eventually he'd probably have to get rid of him.

"You have a flight to the states booked, tomorrow at four AM. The details are on their way over to you via messenger. You're going to be working a jail break."

"Not my usual line of work." Sebastian stated, but the tone gave away his interest. While he did have his...independent thoughts sometimes, he truly was in alignment for the excitement that came with criminal activity. "How does it affect our...current events?"

OUR?

He rolled his eyes, and pursed his lips. Was it worth it to go off? No. Not when he was about to send Sebastian to do something rather major and a screw up would cause a ripple in the waters he didn't want to have happen yet. Calm. 1, 2, 3.

"It plays into what is coming up, on more levels than was originally thought. It will all be there in the package."

"So it's a break and grab? What's he in for?"

"Oh the usual, statutory rape, attempted murder, embezzlement."

There was a long pause, and he decided to add the icing on the cake; "Oh, and he's a preacher as well."

"Lovely. I'll be in contact."

"Be sure you do, I don't think I need to remind you what will happen if you fuck this up."

He hung up the phone, glancing at the clock. Still time to kill before his 'date'...joy.

* * *

Maddie found that being in the morgue was different than she had expected. She didn't have the sense of dread in there that she had in the rest of the hospital. It didn't even feel like a hospital. It was nice.

For the first hour or so, Sherlock actually engaged her-questioned her, and showed off his projects and ideas. It reminded her of her father showing her a new suit, or robot. Then...he got engrossed. Something was going unexpected with one of his projects, which meant he tuned everything else out.

Molly who had originally seemed standoffish took pity on her and started conversation, "He gets like this here...with everyone." A soft smile, looking over to Sherlock, then back to Maddie. "How long have you…?"

"Oh, I've been living at Baker Street for the last three-ish months." She had been sitting next to Sherlock, but with the new conversation starting she moved over towards Molly. "But I would say I've known Sherlock for the last two months, he tends to use my flat as a makeshift lab I suppose."

It was quiet for a moment, and Maddie shifted her weight from side to side, "So how do you like working here? It seems nice and quiet."

"Oh it is." Molly said with a smile, "I like that though, I can kind of do my own thing and take my time with what I need to."

"That is nice, I translate books-so I can do that on my own schedule which is lovely."

Maddie started to pick up on something, Molly kept looking at the clock. It was a small and insignificant gesture, but she had enough experience with doing the same thing growing up during concerts or practice. The dart of the eyes to the clock, keeping the head forward and engaged, but really just wishing time would pass by faster.

"Am I keeping you?" She had to ask, maybe Molly was just being nice, but wanted to leave and didn't want small chit-chat.

"Oh." Molly blushed, a small smile on her face, "No, no-sorry, I just usually run late and I need to be on time-I have a date tonight." The smile told Maddie that this wasn't something that happened often. Maddie could relate.

"Oh, fun! First date?"

"Yes, he's from IT-was down to fix my computer earlier."

Maddie smiled, "That will be fun, what are you going to wear?"

Molly frowned a moment, "I'm not quite sure yet, as it's rather last minute-I told him I was off at seven, but I'm actually heading home a lot earlier-no idea what's clean and what's not."

The rest of their conversation was spent talking about all the ways Molly could wear her hair or make-up, it was interesting. It reminded Maddie a lot of when she would talk to Pepper. By the time Molly was leaving, they had made plans for the following day to grab dinner together and talk about how the date went.

Of course ending the conversation meant that she was left alone with Sherlock who didn't seem like he was going to come out of his head anytime soon. She pondered all of her options, but in the end she decided that instead of sitting around twiddling her fingers she would go to the shops, pick up a few things, and head home to make dinner.

Instead of saying goodbye she just wrote a note on a scrap of paper that had been in her purse. "Heading back to Baker Street, thanks for having me out." and left it nearby him on top of his coat that he had flung onto a chair. No reason to disturb him for such a trivial matter, he wasn't the type to request she stay, and she wasn't the type to sit around with nothing to do.

After leaving St. Barts, once she was out in the open she wondered about Sherlock's brother and their relationship. The way he talked made it seem like she would be abducted, but also he spoke in such a way that made her seem like it wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen. It made for a slightly paranoid trip to the shops. Once at the shops she kept looking over her shoulder, was that his brother there hiding behind the bananas? Nope, just a shop boy. "Calm down." she told herself as she tossed some onions into her basket.

She was contemplating if waffles would be a good idea for dinner when her phone went off. She shifted her basket (which was already over-flowing) and plucked her phone from her jacket pocket.

**Dad**: Should I get her a horse?

**Mads**: Are you insane?

**Dad**: Yes.

**Mads**: No. Just get her a really nice necklace, maybe some flowers, she likes romantic gestures not barnyard animals.

**Dad**: That's no fun.

**Mads**: Well it's not your birthday.

He stopped texting after that, and she figured he ended up getting preoccupied. She finally did decide that waffles should be for dinner and tossed some syrup into her basket before heading to the check out.

It was all very normal but not normal. She came to London wanting the normal simple life with a group of friends and ended up making friends with a man that enjoyed looking at slides of fungus at her kitchen table. It certainly could have been worse, both friendship and life wise. She was happy, her life finally seemed to have direction and friendships. Finally seemed like she could leave her past behind her and have her own life.

It was nice.

* * *

A week and a half had flown by. In that week she heard nothing of Sherlock's brother (perhaps he didn't think she was useful or something), she had gone out with Molly for dinner twice (listening to her talk about Jim quite a lot), and didn't see much of John due to his blossoming relationship with Sarah who seemed...nice. Just not...for John. Maybe she was reading too much into it though.

There was one crucial thing that Maddie forgot to realize. Her life, as it had always been had seasons. It would be good for awhile, then very bad. Or moderately okay and then somewhat bad. Things always popped up. In her teen years she imagined what life would be like if she was one of the people who just had a good life, where nothing bad ever happened. She wanted that life badly. Sadly she thought she currently had that life, thought that the move to London had some how changed her fate.

It was Wednesday and she was getting ready for her book club. They were reading 'The Night Circus' which had actually been a quick and fun read for her. She had spent the last two nights curled up on the sofa reading, while occasionally listening to thumping from upstairs (she didn't even want to know what that was from). She was in the middle of putting her boots on when there was a knock at the door. It was a hard and heavy knock and made her frown.

Sherlock didn't knock, he assumed texting her would be considered his version of knocking.

Mrs. Hudson's knock was light, had a rhythm to it.

John always did three light knocks and then entered-assuming she was aware he was going to stop by, if not it was three light knocks then waiting for her to call up "come in".

This knock was heavy and foreboding. Maybe she was just still paranoid from last week with Sherlock. Her stomach flipped in circles. She finished sliding her boots on, and took a deep calming breath before she headed up the stairs.

Halfway up she realized she was being silly, it was probably a delivery she had to sign for. Or maybe something else, innocent. She rolled her eyes at herself, slightly annoyed by her own thoughts. The betrayal over how quick she became paranoid.

However, when she opened the door she nearly fell back down her stairs, her paranoia in this instance seemed to have real merit. Thanks to her stepfather she had a fear, a deep baseline of "If I make a mistake I'm bad, something is wrong and there will be punishment." her heart started to thud, because there was only one reason those two men would be standing at her door...she did something wrong. They weren't the 'social visit' type, and if something happened to her Dad they would have sent Pepper or even Natasha.

"Hello Agent Coulson, Agent M-this is a...surprise." She tried to keep the stuttering out of her mouth. She actually deeply liked Agent Coulson, he was a good boss, if it wasn't for him showing up with Agent M she probably would have hugged him and happily greeted him. But Agent M (who was her direct supervisor while she lived in London) was a very stern faced man who always seemed like she was the last person he wanted to see. Maddie suspected he thought she would be like her Dad, unruly and obnoxious.

"We need to talk." Was all Agent Coulson said, and Maddie had to stop from throwing up on her shoes. Her translations lately had been spot on, there was nothing she could have done wrong...right?

She nodded and simply turned around, leading the way downstairs. Her narrow staircase wouldn't allow them to go first, so she just let them follow her. When she was down in her living space her eyes darted around, making sure there wasn't anything out that was bad (ie: wine next to her translation books). To be fair since Sherlock and John kept coming over she kept her place tidy, no bras on her bookshelves, no four day old plates on the coffee table. It was clean and cozy.

"Um, would you two like anything to drink?"

Dumb question, neither man did. It was weird, having your bosses at your house. It suddenly became THEIR space and not hers. Her table was fairly clear, so they would sit there. It looked like a meeting where they would need to sit, or maybe just have her sit and loom over her with scary frowns.

Coulson looked more concerned than anything else, she had known him since she moved in with her Dad. He was the one that got her involved in SHIELD. He was like some strange uncle who could turn into a boss at the drop of a hat. Agent M didn't look upset either, but he looked around her flat with distaste and seemed to fixate his gaze on the few things of Sherlock's that had been sitting in the middle of the table (Something she meant to get after Sherlock about).

"Science project?" Agent M asked, brows raised.

"Um, friends stuff." She explained, there was never any sense in lying to her bosses. They were trained to see through it, and quite honestly she was a shitty liar (which was why pretending to be someone else simply meant sticking CLOSE to the truth vs making up extensive lies about being an orphan or something).

Agent M looked amused for a moment but it went away, his stone sour look plastered back onto his face, "I think I'll let Agent Coulson explain why we are here. Considering I don't think it's something useful."

"If you didn't want to come you didn't have to." Coulson snapped back, irritated. She wondered how long they had been together that day. She had only met Agent M twice, and those two times were when she was first in town getting used to her life, they met to talk about how to submit her work and what to do if she found herself stuck with a translation. She had a tour of his offices, and was lead to believe that he was a horribly high ranking man in the British government-much the way she figured Nick Fury was in America. The, "Sure I don't RUN the country, but I RUN the country." type of way.

"I have my reasons." And then he busied himself looking around her flat, in a way that made her want to tell him to leave-but she wasn't that much like her Dad, not yet anyway.

Coulson sat down next to her, in a way that concerned her. Too much like an uncle, she wasn't in trouble for her work, but something happened.

"What...just...tell me, you're kind of freaking me out." Now that Agent M was busy she didn't feel the need to be insanely formal.

"Well, two things…" He started, and he looked at her for a long time as if trying to decide which would be best to hear first. She fully understood that this was a good news vs. bad news situation. The good news seemed to win, "Your work is being really well received, we have something that came up and we're going to have to switch gears from just translating what you have on hand to working on an active project. We'll be sending a lot of books, texts that we have on old Norse life. We want to see into that, see what their writings may tell us."

She frowned, Norse? Really? She had done a few texts before on that, but to focus on that solely for awhile for an active project? She hated active project translating, there was always too much to do. And Norse wasn't her favorite, they tended to use Elder Futhark writings and it seemed to all blend together page after page. Fun.

Okay so that was the...good news? Seriously. She knew he didn't come to tell her that only. He could have sent her an e-mail to let her know she would be getting more books for an active project.

"Sounds lovely."

She wanted to snap, 'get to the point' at him but held her tongue. Instead of watching his face while he tried to figure out how to tell her the bad news she glanced at where Agent M had ended up, he was thumbing through her translation notebooks. Thank god she didn't keep a diary, he would probably sniff that out and sit down to read with joy. There was a thump from upstairs, and it was shortly after that where she heard her phone go off.

No. No...no no no no no...that couldn't happen. She couldn't reach and look at her phone considering she was in the room with her two bosses. Her heart was thumping a mile a minute, and all she wanted to do was go to book club. Sherlock, even if he didn't get a response text would just burst in to do whatever, even knowing it was book club night-that wouldn't stop him. Hell, he probably spent hours in her flat when she wasn't there.

Maybe it was John, or her Dad, or Molly even texting her?

Please don't be Sherlock.

Please don't come down in the middle of her little pow-wow with her bosses. Not that he would gather much from her bosses being there, but he WAS Sherlock and he would dig.

"Maddie, I want you to not think the worst possible outcome." Yeah, Coulson knew her. It got her attention back on him. It kept her stomach doing back flips.

"What?" Maybe it was her Dad, maybe they wouldn't send someone else. Maybe her Dad finally pissed off the wrong people who were stronger than he was?

"There was an incident at the prison where Connor is."

A deep breath, maybe he was dead? She could hear the staircase creaking upstairs. Please don't be Sherlock coming down. Please.

"There was a lot of confusion, and we're still not clear on what happened-a lot of guards were killed."

No. Please don't. Don't say anymore. Stop.

"There are a few men unaccounted for, some were picked up not far out of Cottonport…" He spared a look over to Agent M who finally tore his gaze out of the notebook. She didn't know him enough to read the current look on his face, maybe he was worried too. Probably just worried to lose the best translator they had. Coulson grabbed her hands, his were warm, hers were cold and starting to get clammy. She wanted to pull away. "We thought to tell you before telling your Dad, if you want him to know at all...you know how he is...there's a lot going on and starting up, if we tell him this he'll be obsessed."

She was crying. She could feel the wetness leaking out of her eyes.

"Connor hasn't been found. We think he took the chance to escape during the incident, nothing is pointing that it was to get him out-rather a man who they picked up in Cottonport. He'll probably just lay low a few days then someone will find him."

Her heart was going to explode. This couldn't be happening. Why did people always feel it was good to share things like this? If they really thought that he was just going to be found later why did she need to go through the mental anguish. Her logical mind told her the following:

If the breakout was meant for someone else, then fath...Connor just took his chances.

He would be found in short order, but in case the information somehow found it's way to her before hand-Coulson wanted her to know.

She had moved around with Tony the last ten years. She spent time in Malibu and New York City, and she lived in London as a different person-Connor was smart but not smart enough to find her-especially after being out of touch for ten years locked away in prison in Louisiana.

Just because she had a logical side didn't mean her emotional side wasn't winning. It was her biggest fear after all, for him to escape. She had a superhero for a real dad, but he hadn't been there when it mattered. He was a superhero for other people-not her.

"A lot of people are looking for him, it's going to be okay."

"Why are you telling me?" She wasn't looking up, she was looking down at their feet. Her dark and scuffed Doc Martins, his horribly expensive looking leather shoes. Their hands wrapped together, her nail polish peeling, his nails perfect.

"Just in case we're wrong and he isn't found."

And that's when she heard the front door click open. Coulson heard it too and shot up from his chair like he had been a coiled spring. She meekly said, "I think it's just my friend."

And that was how Sherlock found them. He had file folders tucked under one of his arms, he looked like he had been fidgeting a lot-his clothes were slightly wrinkled. It took one look over the room for him to figure out he walked in on something very strange. Maddie was sitting at her table in tears (she could only assume her face was red, and could only hope there wasn't any snot yet). Agent Coulson was standing next to her, hand on his service weapon ready to shoot if it wasn't a friend coming in. Finally Agent M, smirking over by her sofa looking like the damn cat that caught the canary.

Agent M was the one to speak.

"Hello brother."

Wait...what?

* * *

And there we have it, the end of this chapter. Hopefully it was worth the wait. Not the most exciting chapter, but that one is coming. Some end notes to clear up any possible questions:

I don't mention his name as we see him going about his day, but it's pretty obvious that I'm talking about Jim Moriarty right?

Sebastian Moran for me is played by Michael Fassbender which seems to be head cannon for a lot of people. I'm still not sure if he's going to have a bigger role than simply "evil dude that works with/for Moriarty".

Connor is her stepfather, that hopefully was obvious. He's going to play a semi-big role coming up, for me he's modeled after Gerard Butler if it matters to you. The prison he is housed at is a fictional prison in a fictional town (which was made up by True Detective, I just borrowed the town is all).

Hopefully it's not too upsetting that Maddie isn't interested in going on cases with Sherlock and John-no worries she'll still have interesting stories and plot points I just don't see her as the type to enjoy a good ole' fashioned crime scene.

Yet again, the tumblr for this story is at (no spaces): thefadeintoyouuniverse . tumblr

And lastly, thank you for reading. I'm not planning on having this be a masterpiece of art but it's fun to write and create-and I do take thoughts into account if any reviewers have any ideas. :)

Thanks!


	6. Chapter 5

**Fade Into You**

**Rating:** R (We are starting to slip into darker territory)

**Notes:** Thank you for the follows & reviews, keep them coming, they help me post these chapters faster! This chapter leads us into the Great Game-yay finally we are in an episode. This one was also easier to write, I'm enjoying keeping Maddie and Sherlock on the slow roll as far as relationship goes-it's a balance to keep Sherlock in character and have a relationship flourish. I also deeply enjoy Maddie and John and cannot wait to add Mary in (but that will be a ton of chapters down the line as I am keeping that in time with the show).

Also, I've been re-reading previous chapters-I feel like I need to state that I beta this myself and sometimes things slip by. I do this for fun, I'm aware I abuse commas, and have some errors here and there. Hopefully it's not too awful.

With that, enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Five:** Crying

Wednesday nights were her book club nights. He knew that, because she had talked to John in extensive detail about the books they were having her read. It made Wednesday nights good nights for him to work in peace in her flat. He adored 221B, but sometimes it was easier to lose himself in his work at her flat. It was that very reason he had entered her flat that night (after texting her, of course). He was starting to get bored, and needed a change of scenery. How he longed for a good murder.

He didn't receive a text back from Maddie before he reached her flat. It was something he wasn't too worried about considering she was supposed to be on her way to her book club. He texted, that was the rule. Nothing in the rules said he had to wait for a text back. Strange to see that there were lights on. Maybe she was sick and didn't go to Book Club?

When he made it down the stairs he realized that something was greatly amiss. The very first thing he noticed was Maddie, who was sitting at her table crying. Her face was bright red, mascara was running, he couldn't tell if he was reading her face right or not. Sad, obviously. There was something else in there, scared, shocked, annoyed? He couldn't tell. He clenched his jaw and let his eyes scan over the rest of the room.

A man stood next to her, hand on a weapon on his belt. He looked like a Government man. That deduction was more sound when Sherlock caught sight of Mycroft, smiling near her sofa.

"Hello brother."

Many scenarios were automatically floating around in his head-quite a few of them dashed when he heard Maddie stand up. "What?!" It was a near scream, she was on the verge of hysterics. He wondered what he walked in on.

"Maddie calm down, you look like you're about to faint." The Government man, American spoke. Close enough to use her first name, not even her proper first name-her nickname. He cared about her, but there was an underlying tension in his body language that told Sherlock that he was possibly someone she worked with.

"Clearly you're not dashing off to your book club." Sherlock stated, calmly despite all his internal thoughts screaming at him about Mycroft being in the room.

She laughed, looking as if she might throw up soon, "Complete bummer because it was such a good book too." She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt, causing her mascara to create deep smudges around her eyes bringing a gothic look about her. "This is your brother?" She asked, her hand waving in Mycroft's general direction. Mycroft looked bored at this point.

Sherlock nodded, "Yes, although I'm not quite sure what he's doing here-and why you are crying. Normally he's more of an abduction type."

"Oh kidnap one of your friends once and it turns into me abducting the populace." Mycroft butted in. "She works for me."

What?

Well, that was unexpected. "She doesn't work for you." The Government man spoke, his hand was on Maddie's shoulder, standing behind her watching the stand off between Sherlock and Mycroft. "She works for us, she just has to go through you while she lives here."

"I think the deal for her getting the duel citizenship was she works for me now, you just get to use her whenever you please." Mycroft bit back. Well that at least explained how she was able to seemingly live in London long term with no worry about having to move back to the States at any given time.

"I thought you were a translator?" Sherlock asked, he set his files down on the table, moving closer-his eyes sweeping over her trying to get something about her to tell him why she was crying. If she worked for Mycroft and this other man it could very well be work related, she did seem the type to cry if she got something wrong.

"She is, you'd be surprised what the Government needs translated."

And then there was a quiet moment. Followed by Maddie's meek voice, it sounded...defeated. "Do I live here because your brother lives here and thus you are able to keep tabs on the two of us or is this just a coincidence?"

Mycroft just smiled. Sherlock was trying to put the pieces together but it didn't fit. Maddie was a translator who worked with the American government but decided to move to London (possibly to get away from her father and live on her own), in order to do this the British Government (Mycroft) accepted her but on his terms-and probably put Mrs. Hudson's ad right in front of her face without her knowing it. Why? Why did Mycroft do this?

Suddenly, Maddie became more interesting.

It was also then when Maddie decided that it was time to throw up whatever she had for dinner. Hand was pressed against her mouth and she made a run for her bathroom. The Government man trailing behind her.

"You don't gain anything by caring Sherlock. Agent Coulson cares, flew right out to come deliver bad news himself-and look at him, looking foolish trailing behind her. It's a weakness."

It really wasn't surprising, Mycroft spent the last decade saying that caring about other people was foolish. And to think Mycroft wondered why Sherlock didn't think he cared about him.

"Why?" Was Sherlock's question, he didn't have to verify what he meant-Mycroft knew. His brother took the time to move around Maddie's flat, coming to stand at her table-his hand touching Sherlock's microscope with slight interest.

"I don't owe many favors brother, but those that I do, I honor. It was requested that I look after the girl, and why not try and get her into Baker Street? After all, I do try my hardest to look after you as well…" Mycroft trailed off, the noise of Maddie retching echoed in the basement flat.

Sherlock fully realized he wasn't going to get more information out of Mycroft, at least not by asking questions. He would have to dig deeper later. "What was the bad news?" He asked, instead of inquiring more on Maddie's work.

The question made Mycroft change his expression. It became less haughty and more...subdued. "She'll have to tell you herself if she wishes, we were just informing her of something that happened back home that may or may not have an effect on her. And yes, I'm here because I figured you were getting restless waiting for me to 'abduct' her. I saw you bring her to St. Barts."

"You can't blame me for being curious as to why you hadn't made a move on her." Sherlock explained.

"Just remember, I'm not the only one out there watching." He paused, "I'm leaving, Agent Coulson can grab a taxi to get him back to the airport. I have no desire to listen to bodily functions of an employee."

He made his way towards her staircase, "Do be careful brother, I'd hate for something to happen to you."

And he was gone, leaving Sherlock at Maddie's table listening to her retch.

Not how he thought his night was going to go.

* * *

In her defense, before everything started that night she had enjoyed nearly half a pizza and almost a pint of ice cream. She always overate on the day after her self defense class. She wondered as she was throwing up if Natasha had known anything the day before. It was doubtful, but still she couldn't help but wonder.

She was over-reacting. Agent Coulson wouldn't say she was, but she knew Agent M (Well guess that cat was out of the bag, Mycroft-seriously what was up with those names?) thought she was over reacting, Sherlock probably thought so too (even though he had no idea what was going on). She was in the 'I'm so upset, and I'm annoying myself by being so upset' mode. She couldn't help it though, between the bad news, then Sherlock coming down (and her everlasting fear that her new friends would find out who she really was), followed by Agent M (her main boss here in London) being Sherlocks brother-she couldn't help but throw up.

Agent Coulson was telling her it would be okay, he didn't want her to react so badly. She just needed to know. No, she knew that wasn't the full truth. She needed to know in order to ask or not ask for them to inform her Dad. She was fully aware if her Dad found out about the break out and no one told her or him he would be livid. To be fair, even with her knowing-if he wasn't told he would be livid.

"I don't want him to know." She whispered, still bent over the toilet. Agent Coulson the wonderful man that he was, was holding her hair back. It was true, she didn't want her Dad to know. They were right-if her Dad knew he would get obsessive and anything important on the radar would go on the back burner. Maddie was good at being self sacrificing. Sacrifice meant not having her super-hero dad look out for her so he could be ready for the rest of the world. And really, what was the true likelihood of Connor finding her?

Agent Coulson patted her shoulder. He might have been nice to her, close to her, but he was still an Agent. He was still there for the greater good. "It's probably nothing, you just...deserved to know."

Yay, deserved to know the man who she thought was her father for the first fifteen years of her life (and who did in fact hurt her very badly) had escaped from prison. How lucky was she to deserve to know this knowledge. She couldn't help but be a little bitter. The acid from the pizza vomit made her throat hurt, and her head was pounding from her tears. She didn't feel like she'd be throwing up more so she moved, flushing the toilet as she went and started to rinse her mouth out at the sink.

Instead of looking at her reflection she looked at Agent Coulson. He looked tired. Like, something big was going on outside of everything, that needed his attention. He looked like this trip was a formality that had to be made in order to cover their asses later if her Dad found out. She figured he must have been trying to get her Dad to do something-and knew if this came out he wouldn't play nice.

SHIELD could keep things quiet as they saw fit, and she would be shocked if the story on the breakout made the newspapers. Yet, they just had to tell her...just in case. Now here she was, smelling like pizza vomit, standing in her bathroom with one of her bosses, with Sherlock in her living room probably wondering what the hell was going on.

Lovely.

"If this happens again...just...you have my permission not to tell me."

"Are you sure?" He was one of the first people that came to her hospital room after they found her, and before she found out that Tony Stark was her real father (which was something many people seemed to have known except for her). He did, even with SHIELD on his side, want what was best for her. She knew that.

"If you ever have any inkling he is in London, tell me. But other than that-I don't need to know. What I do need to know is what's going on? Why the sudden switch in translations, and why the worry about my Dad being focused on something?" She wasn't stupid. She had a feeling they didn't want her Dad to know because something big was coming up and if he had known about the break out he wouldn't care about anything else. It was all they could do originally to keep him from killing Connor.

"There is a project going on right now that could...well let's just say we may need your Dad's help and if he's focused on finding Connor we won't be able to use him to his full potential."

Well it was better then him being closed mouth about it-which she knew he would have been around Agent M...Mycroft. Dammit. Seriously was her life a god damned sitcom or something?

A really depressing sitcom, not the fun FRIENDS type.

What was worse was that yes, she really would like her Dad to know. She would have loved it if he went off and killed Connor, or at least got him back into jail. For a long time it was something she fantasized about, but unfortunately-the bigger picture mattered. Her Dad was pretty self absorbed most of the time and would easily go off the deep in to solve his daughters problem instead of the worlds. She wasn't self absorbed though, she knew deep down that not telling him was the right thing-because honestly what was the likelihood of Connor even finding her? Even if he did survive outside of jail for awhile.

"So I know you meant well, but basically this was just you guys trying to cover your asses so of my Dad does find out I'm the one to blame for requesting him not to be told?"

Agent Coulson was already slipping a piece of paper onto her bathroom counter top. It was a form that said just that, she knew the situation, and didn't want Iron Man to go buzzing around trying to fix the situation. She looked back at Coulson through the mirror, he looked like he was torn between being a friend and a boss. She shrugged, reached for the pen he pulled out of his jacket and signed her name on the bottom of the paper.

"I'm not dumb, I know that the bigger picture is what matters. I get it, I do. Doesn't mean I won't cry into my pillow tonight-but I get it." She reassured him. There it was, self sacrifice.

"I wish I could have came with better news."

She shrugged, handing the paper back to him. "I could have reacted better." She could have, it was the combination of the fear, then the fact Sherlock waltzed in, then the fact her boss in London WAS Sherlock's brother...or maybe she reacted perfectly. Either way she still felt like a bottle of wine and a huge piece of chocolate would set life right.

"It's just better to be safe than sorry, plus we really do need you to switch gears with translation and I was going to be in town anyway. Between police and our people looking, I'm sure he'll turn up in a ditch somewhere." He took the moment to look around her bathroom, as if finally feeling like he was able to take the glance around now that she wasn't falling into pieces. "Nice place."

"Kind of feels tainted. I don't think it's coincidence that I just happened to end up in the basement of the building my bosses brother lives in." She frowned, that actually did upset her. Probably her fathers doing, meetings in London, probably asked for her to be looked after. Dammit.

"To be fair, no matter where you lived your Dad was going to have a hand in it." He told her.

She led him out of the bathroom. No sense delaying the inevitable of Sherlock being in her living room any longer. It was surprising though to find that Mycroft had already left. Agent Coulson didn't think it was as surprising, at least it didn't look as if he did.

Sherlock was at her table, and for the first time he didn't look like he was preoccupied by anything. He looked worried, and maybe a little upset. She frowned, she would have preferred to find him in her kitchen looking over slides filled with 'body ick'. Instead he was sitting on a kitchen chair, his body bent forward, with his elbows on his knees.

Apparently it was a weird night for everyone.

"The first of the new books to translate will arrive first thing in the morning and we need them done as soon as possible. I'll make sure to let you know if we…" Coulson glanced over to Sherlock and then back to Maddie, "Figure out what's going on with the current situation." She knew that was meant about Connor, to let her know if they found him.

She smiled, "Thanks. Sorry for nearly hurling on your shoes."

He gave an amused smile back, and nodded. His hand lingered on her shoulder. She leaned into him and gave him a hug. Not quite a hug from her Dad, but Tony Stark would probably be surprised by how similar he and Coulson were. Sure her Dad had a huge chunk of illuminated metal in his chest, but they smelled the same, and hugged the same. The kind of hug where no matter how the hug starts, it starts off unsure, and then it feels like they never want to let go. Agent Coulson wasn't just her first hospital visitor after Connor went completely crazy, nor was he just her boss, he was the one that carried her out broken and battered. She truly did owe him her life.*

The hug ended, he left with a simple, "Be good."

And then she was alone with Sherlock. Her stomach twisted in knots again. How to explain this without giving every damn thing away? Why did this have to happen on book club night?

* * *

Sherlock truly did not know what to think. One moment his downstairs neighbor was a translator with Daddy issues, the next she worked for Mycroft and clearly had a decent standing with the government if to give bad news meant they went to her instead of calling her in. When she reappeared, saying goodbye to Agent Coulson, she didn't look good. Pale from throwing up, and while it was clear she had splashed water on her face Maddie's eyes were still slightly rimmed in black smudged eyeliner.

"You have questions?" She asked him, she might have been meek sometimes but she was far from stupid. He watched as she moved to her fridge, pulling out a wine bottle.

"Should you be drinking?" He asked, she had just thrown up, she was emotional…

"I'm an adult." She said. Something about the way she said it made the words sound like she was trying to convince herself instead of him, "I didn't know your brother was my boss here." She told him, struggling for a moment to open the bottle. It looked like she was going to cry again.

He rolled his eyes, and stood-joining her at the counter. He took the bottle and the corkscrew from her, "You're going to hurt yourself." He opened it for her. She gave him a small smile of thanks, and he was already moving to where she kept the glasses. He knew where they were from snooping around and from just being in her flat for extended periods of times.

He pulled out two. Alcohol was never his drug of choice, it dimmed instead of brightened. At least with the drugs he could still think-sometimes better than ever. However, it seemed like tonight would be a night where a glass of wine would do him good as well. It would also make her more apt to talk to him if he seemed like he was relaxing as well.

She poured the wine for both of them, surprised that he was joining but it did seem to please her a little. "You didn't know he was my brother?"

Maddie sighed and shook her head. She took a long sip of her wine and moved to the sofa, Sherlock just followed; he knew sometimes it was good to use force to get information (at least on a case where everything was time sensitive) but in this case- with this woman being patient would pay off more than being forceful.

He took a sip of the wine, it was actually good. He sat next to her, for the first time-her sofa was comfortable.

"I've only known him as Agent M, didn't really question it. Sometimes agent's are just letters. I'm sure he did that so I wouldn't put it together-Mycroft isn't a very common name, and if I ever saw the last name Holmes, I at least would have asked you."

It felt odd sitting on the sofa next to her, he now understood why it seemed that if she and John were sitting on it she was practically on his lap-it was the kind of sofa that sunk in deep and if two people were sitting on it, they were by default sitting close. Close enough where he could feel her body warmth, close enough to smell the perfume she wore. It was made worse (or better?) when she slipped her boots off and pulled her feet onto the sofa.

"Although, I suppose I am happy to at least know who he is-even if he's my boss here. I had been looking over my shoulder wondering if any strange men were going to pick me up." She confessed, a shrug. She sighed, deep, another gulp of her wine. It looked like she would be crying again soon.

"What are you hiding?" He asked softly. One moment she was a friend, and the next she worked for his brother-that did not sit well with him.

Wait...friend?

He looked over at her, she was looking down at her now nearly empty wine glass. He could see the way her lips trembled, her chest moving up and down slowly, noticed that she needed to paint her nails again. Sherlock knew from the start she was hiding something, but disregarded it simply because she had been very translucent with most things-she even let him roam her flat without a care. It just didn't sit well now to know that she was working for his brother and she needed to be watched as well, thus his brother figuring out a way to get her to Baker Street.

"It's nothing bad." She said with a whisper. "I just wanted to start over."

It was quiet for a really long time, and then she began to cry. He didn't like it, and he wasn't sure if it was because the tears seemed pointless or because it made his stomach twist to hear her upset.

She cried and he thought, and eventually when he wasn't even paying attention she managed to use him to keep her propped up. Perhaps it was just...coincidence that lead her to him...Baker street...not him. If she worked for the government as a translator and wanted to move to London due to a wealthy father who possibly had a favor Mycroft owed him-of course she would probably end up at Baker street. He didn't need to be a genius to know her father was the type to check up on her, occasionally on Sunday nights he would hear bits and pieces of her phone call to her father if Sherlock was home (and in his bedroom where the vent allowed him to hear). So, of course her father would want Mycroft to look after her. Easiest place for Mycroft to do that was Baker Street.

It wasn't some elaborate scheme against him. Certainly wasn't apart of Moriarty's grand plan, she didn't seem like that great of a liar. She was just genuinely...Maddie. With a few secrets that he couldn't exactly read.

For now though, he wouldn't ask anymore questions. Instead, they sat-over time she ended up wedged under his arm, crying into his chest. Her wine glass sitting on the coffee table, his still in his free hand. His other arm was wrapped around her, fingers sprawled over her ribcage feeling her breathe. While he was being...nice for whatever reason, he was also feeling how she was breathing-waiting for the wine to take effect, for the emotions to take effect, for her to pass out so he could move. Everything did have a motive, even being nice was to insure he would still have the ability to use her flat and possibly learn more and more about her without needing to prod.

He had to admit it was hard to hear her cry, and it made him wonder what her bad news was.

He would however, never admit that it felt nice to have her so close. She was warm and soft, despite being so small, she wasn't all bones. She, unlike the others in his life, didn't distract him from his thoughts as much. Being around her was just like being alone, perhaps some would find offense in that, but it wasn't that he forgot about her presence like say-John, but it was that her presence didn't bother him-he could still think...he could still work.

* * *

"How do you like your freedom?" He asked with a smile on his face, so wide and big it looked as if he was the chesire cat.

"It's bettah than I expected." His accent was strong, a deep southern drawl to it. They were currently in a hotel room, a posh place, paid for by a few recent wrongdoings. He knew the way to a criminals heart (hah) was to show them you could make life good for them.

This man looked like he had been missing the good life for far too long. His skin was darkly tanned from being outside with little sun protection over the years. He had rough scars over his arms, and a rather large scar across his neck. Outside of that he looked remarkably well. It was amazing what a good shower and a change of clothes would do.

"I hear a lot of people are looking for you now." He started, pouring himself some tea. Between the two men sat a large amount of food, brunch was always so delicious. "Did my man have any trouble?"

"No sir, before I knew what was happenin' I was shoved on some private plane an' here I am." Polite. He was surprised. He didn't have to teach him that he was his superior in this situation.

"Can't have a criminal of your status walking through normal security." He had his ways, he was the only consulting criminal in the world, of course he had friends in all the right places, and money to do with what he so pleased.

"I was told my daughter is livin' over here." Straight to business it seemed.

"I didn't think she was your daughter…" He loved being the person that poked at an old emotional wound.

"She IS my daughter, I raised that little bitch, fed her and clothed her-she is MINE." Anger issues, red face, hitting the table with a balled up fist. You could find out a lot about people, by how they reacted.

"Well now." He smiled, amused by the situation. "Before we get to that matter, we need to discuss what's expected of you. I didn't pluck you out of the middle of no where due to the kindness of my heart."

"What do ya want?" More subdued, the mans blue eyes raised to meet his. Sebastian was the only other person who tended to look in his eyes. It showed promise.

"Your daughter." Might as well appease him, "Happens to be living with someone who I am very interested in playing with. He thinks he is just so good, and I'd like to prove to him that he's not." Somewhat the truth, but there were other reasons as well. Reasons that he did not need to know. "It took awhile to figure out who she was, and once we did I knew we should bring you into the game."

"The game?"

"Not important. What is important is that you work with me and help me, when I say jump you jump, and in return very soon you'll get to hold your dear daughter as close to you as you wish."

"Why does this help you? I'm not a stupid man, what's your angle?"

He laughed, "If I thought you were stupid you wouldn't be here right now. Let's just say your little girl seems to be getting close to this man. It would be so much fun to see what happens if she were to get hurt. I'd like to see where his heart lies."

"After what she did to me…" The man's nostrils flared, his lips pursed, it was pure anger. Oh god, and it felt so good to be around. Just bathe him in it, he loved that feeling. Pure anger was pure power. The man was so blinded by it, he would be able to make him do anything. "Prison isn't kind to my type."

"Which type is that, child rapists or preachers?"

"She wasn' that young, was all woman where it counted."

Okay then.

"So, do we have a deal? You work for me, and when I allow it, you are able to interact with her-and do what you please?"

"What happens after?"

He smiled, he liked working with intelligence.

"Well after depends on how you do, there might not be an after, or you might just work for me from now on forever and ever." He sing-songed.

The man nodded, he knew he didn't have the option to say no. No meant death, that much was obvious. "We have a deal Mr. Moriarty."

"Oh c'mon, call me Jim-we might as well be best buds now with the work we're about to do."

* * *

It had been four days since the night she cried herself to sleep on Sherlock. She was impressed he hadn't dug for answers, and slightly worried he might just look on his own. When she had woken up the next day she was in her bed. She was still dressed in her clothes (thank god), but she was under her covers. It was obvious Sherlock had carried her into her room and laid her in bed. Since that night she hadn't seen him, but he had texted her things. Some of the more recent texts were;

**SH:** Do you play piano or is it just for looks?

**SH**: Did you go out with Molly last night, I thought I heard her?

**SH**: Is John with you tonight?

It was actually interesting how similar he was to her dad as far as texting went. She wondered what freud would have to say about that, or the other similarities that were adding up.

**Mads:** He's coming over for dinner, you're welcome to join.

She found the best way to deal with everything was to not deal and ignore it. There was no word on if Connor had been found yet, and the best way to ignore it was to work. She had a lot of books delivered, and a lot of work to go through, therefore the last four days were just filled with her falling into work. She did go out with Molly the previous night, mostly because they had made plans already. That was the same reason John was coming down for dinner; they already had plans. She supposed it helped, otherwise she would have just sat in her flat working and ignoring the world in general.

It was amazing how having friends made her feel normal, like it was going to be okay.

**SH:** Hardly wish to hear the two of you chatter on over nothing.

Ouch that stung, but that was Sherlock. It wasn't like she was expecting more.

**SH**: It's good that you're spending time with friends.

Well that was the more she didn't expect. She didn't have time to respond before he had texted once more,

**SH:** Enjoy your dinner with John.

She smiled at the phone and set it down, it really was nice to have friends to help her get her mind off of things. She had been cooking for the last hour, music was playing in the background, and she was busy chopping up vegetables for a salad. In her own flat, in London, with friends nearby-she truly did feel silly for worrying so much.

When John knocked she had been setting the table, a quick shout of "C'mon in!" followed with her hearing him unlocking her door, and his heavy steps down the stairs.

"That smells so good." He proclaimed, stepping into her flat, looking tired and happy like usual. She assumed, he had came directly over from work and as soon as he was in her flat he was already making a beeline for her fridge for to get a drink.

"It's just stew." and homemade bread, and a really nice salad, and a sponge cake… "Sarah still not cooking that well?"

It didn't take John long to realize that Sarah was a rubbish cook.

He had pulled out a beer and was quickly popping the cap off, and after a long pull she could tell that he was relaxed. "Eggs aren't supposed to be black." He said with humor.

"No, I don't think they are." She agreed with a laugh, moving to the table to spoon stew into the bowls she already placed there. John shrugged out of his coat and tossed it over the back of a kitchen chair. With how everyone treated Baker Street she was surprised any of them even had doors. It seemed they all truly enjoyed the others company, the only time it didn't was when Sherlock was in one of his moods.

"Work been busy? I saw the other day you were getting a lot of boxes." John politely waited for her to grab her own drink (a diet coke) and sit down before he started to inhale dinner. She wondered if he had time to eat that day at all.

"Yeah, they have me on an active project right now-so they needed to send me more books."

"How does a translator get active projects?" He asked, curious. She didn't mind, his curiosity was different than Sherlock's. Sherlock, when he was asking questions it was to fill the urge to know everything, when John did it, it was conversation, it was getting to know you.

"Hmm, let me put it this way-there are a lot of things out there and people who stick to really old rules and agendas. If you don't know certain things you might offend, get off on the wrong foot with a hidden tribe..."

John paused, dunking a piece of bread into the stew. "I don't think I get it."

"Let's just say I translate history out of these books and make notes on anything I find interesting, maybe there was a weird object in the sky one year-could have been an asteroid or comet and if so, would that appear again anytime soon?-or maybe in a certain culture they used to worship old Gods and tracked their belief system on that and it could be a nice gesture in current days if you knew that and brought some kind of gift based on that." That was the best way to explain it without fully explaining it. Her job really was just to translate old texts, but they mattered now because they were finding out that certain things were true (like God's) and even finding alien text out there to translate.

"Old Gods? Like Odin or something?"

She coughed into her drink, "Yeah."

Not like she could outright say she was studying old God's because they might really actually exist and they needed to know everything there was on them. Nope, couldn't say that one without looking like a crazy person.

"I didn't know the Government studied that kind of thing."

She shrugged, "Not all branches do, and I mean, a lot of this stuff is already known and translated-but sometimes a second translation doesn't hurt, plus I can flag anything that seems interesting."

"Like a comet."

"There ya go." She smiled, "Like a comet."

They were quiet for a few minutes, she hadn't realized how hungry she had been, and it seemed like John hadn't eaten well in days. He had moved to help himself to seconds when he brought the conversation back.

"Did anything happen between you and Sherlock the other night? He's been up in the flat a lot, usually he's down here at least for a few hours some nights."

She frowned as she chewed on a slice of bread, she knew Sherlock hadn't been to her flat the last few nights, but he had been texting her a great deal so it didn't feel that different. John sat back down, tucking into his second bowl of stew. "I had some bad news the other night-it's not important but I got kind of weepy on him."

"You cried on him?" John had his brows raised sky high in disbelief.

"It kind of just...happened. One moment we were drinking wine on the sofa…"

"Sherlock was drinking wine? What?"

She glared at him, "One moment we were having some wine-he walked in during a...bad moment, so I think he felt like partaking maybe would help me somehow. I don't know, anyway I started to cry-and you know how my sofa is, how if you sit you sink and if someone else sits you sink together?"

He nodded.

"That's what happened, and I started on his shoulder, and eventually I think I was sobbing into his shirt. He put me to bed and that was that."

"He put you to bed?"

"I mean, I kinda passed out on him. And I woke up the next day in my bed so I'm assuming he carried me."

"You were crying so hard you passed out?" John, he cared. It was nice.

"It was just some unexpected bad news plus stress."

"Do you want to talk about it?" It wasn't prodding, just the offer to have someone listen. She appreciated that.

"Nah, it's okay-work took my mind off it, and I went out with Molly last night and then you're here today!"

"I am here today, I know I've been a little absent lately with Sarah and all…"

She smiled at him and grabbed her empty bowl and headed over to toss it into the sink. "Trust me, it's okay. I'm glad you're enjoying yourself."

He followed her into the kitchen, they continued to make small talk while they did dishes. Like usual it was her washing and him drying. Occasionally she'd smear bubbles on him and he'd hit her with the towel he was drying with.

This was safe. This was nice.

And then the gunshots went off upstairs. It was loud enough that she jumped and dropped a glass, causing it to shatter on her floor. John was already running, shouting for her to stay there as he rushed up to see what was going on. There was another gunshot and she flinched, unsure what to do.

Considering that the gunshots stopped, and she heard John yelling upstairs (he didn't close her front door on the way up) she figured everything was okay. The issue was that there was broken glass all over the floor and she had bare feet at the moment. Regardless of how careful she was when she tried to move for the broom she still felt a sharp awful pain in the bottom of her foot.

Dammit.

By the time John stormed back down to her flat she was sitting on her counter top trying to dig a piece of glass out of the heel of her foot. Not classy, but wasn't like she could do much else with glass in her foot and she didn't want to drag blood all the way into the bathroom where she could have tweezed the glass out.

"He was bored! He's bloody insane!"

"What?" She asked, not bothering to look up from what she was attempting to do. The tips of her fingers were getting bloody. It wasn't a bad cut, it was just that there was glass stuck in her. She was never one to panic over blood anymore.

"He was shooting off a gun because he was bored, told him off-I'll go to Sarah's tonight-you're bleeding! The glass, oh God Maddie I'm sorry-left you in the middle of that broken glass."

"It's okay, really-I just didn't want to get blood on the carpet." She explained, he was already moving-first he grabbed the broom she kept tucked away and casually swept the glass shards off to one side to be taken care of later. He had a look at her foot after batting her hands away.

"I think you pushed it in deeper, I can't tell-no offense but the lighting in your kitchen is awful."

She laughed at that, "Yeah I know."

Before she knew it he turned around in front of her after covering her foot with a kitchen towel. "Hop on."

"What?" She blinked, staring at the back of his head for a moment.

"Hop on, your bathroom has better lighting, and this way you don't have to worry about getting blood everywhere."

"Um."

"I'm stronger than I look Maddie, I was in the army for christsakes-hop on." He was getting a little snippy-probably due to Sherlock's antics so she wasn't about to question him further.

First her arms went around his neck, and then she scooted herself forward until his arms had hold of her legs. Soon enough he was piggybacking her to the bathroom. She put her chin on his head, and gave a soft smile. "My mom would carry me around like this when I was a kid, especially at parades or after church."

He shifted his weight as they got to her bathroom and managed to turn on the light without dropping her, "I used to carry my sister around like this too." Both memories that were happy, but verged on sad memories because her mother wasn't around, and his sister wasn't like she used to be. He sat her down on her bathroom counter, "First aid?"

"Under the sink, probably buried in the back-I haven't needed it yet."

He was rummaging around under her sink, "Do you need this much bubble bath?" As if to accentuate the point two of her bubble bath bottles fell out from under the sink.

"I don't have that much."

"Maddie, you have seven bottles down here-and one of them is a gallon-you have a problem."

"Do not."

"Do too."

"I think I just dripped foot blood on your head."

He moved from under the sink, first aid kit in hand, feeling the back of his head. "Let's never speak of this moment again."

She smiled, he laughed, and went to work on her foot. It wasn't pleasant, but he managed to get the shard out and then simply bandaged it up. He did take the time to help her finish cleaning, and he didn't refuse the left-overs she gave him to take to Sarah's. Leaving her alone with the phrase, "If he bothers you too much just give me a call, he seems to be in a mood."

When she was all alone she could just look around and sigh.

It wasn't much later when she was working at her table with a translation, when an explosion shattered one of her windows and caused her ears to make a loud pitched ringing sensation. It left her heart thumping and her mind racing as she sat, cursing Sherlock who had been hoping all along for something interesting to happen.

* * *

*The whole Coulson/Maddie thing will be explained more later, there are going to be some heavy flashback scenes in future chapters. To give you a little taste (and maybe clear up some stuff), let's just say before Maddie knew that Tony Stark was her dad, SHIELD was watching her (even more-so after her mother had died). With that, they were able to be the first ones on the scene after her step-father went (more) crazy.


	7. Chapter 6

**Fade Into You**

**Rating**: R (this gettin' dark).

**Notes**: Thank you to reviewers new and old, and thanks for all the story favorites/follows. I'm so stoked that a lot of people seem to be liking this. I'm trying to update as fast as I can! I will say this, we have now started "The Great Game" episode. I won't write the episode word for word though-after all, how can I with Maddie thrown into the mix?

So...on with, The Great Game.

* * *

**Chapter Six:** The Great Game Pt 1

Everyone was okay. That was the good news. Mrs. Hudson had already went down to her flat to call for repairs with the windows (upstairs any window facing the street were blown out, one of Maddie's basement windows was shattered, and Mrs. Hudson's tiny kitchen window wasn't blown, but it was shattered apparently). Right after the explosion Maddie had went upstairs, to discover Sherlock shakily standing-in his dressing gown no less, and Mrs. Hudson looking terrified.

It was a few minutes after getting to his flat, that Maddie was able to talk Sherlock into sitting down (he had been pacing quite a bit), in order to get glass out of his hair. She had noticed it tumbling out, onto his collar then onto the floor. She had been smart enough to put shoes on before going upstairs, which was painful to the foot that had previously met glass. As Sherlock sat he didn't engage in conversation-it was the first time she had seen him since she fell asleep on him. She could see it in his eyes, that he was busy thinking, more than likely about the explosion.

Moving to stand behind him as he sat she felt a lump grow in her throat. Combing through his hair would be different than her sobbing and falling asleep on him-she wasn't in her right mind then. Now she was very aware that she was looking down at his curly mop of hair. She had previously grabbed a comb from his bathroom-it was Johns, it had to be. Sherlock's hair did not look like it had seen a comb in years.

She had draped a towel around his shoulders to catch any glass that would fall from the gentle combing. With one deep breath she placed her left hand on his head to steady him, and her other hand started to comb softly through his hair. She could feel his change in posture, and heard him take a breath in as she started touching his head. It was weird. This was weird. She shouldn't have offered.

But she did, and it was too late to stop now. His hair was soft, and his head was warm. After combing through a section, she would do her best to run her fingers through it-softly so neither she nor he were to get cut. It had started to become less weird and more zen after a while.

"What do you think happened?" He asked her, his voice was soft, relaxed. For some reason, he did tend to ask her opinion on things. She wasn't sure why.

"Well, there is no reason for the building across the street to randomly explode. Could have been a gas leak, or something-but…"

"But?"

She had set the comb down on the back of the chair, there were little tiny pebbles of glass littering the towel around his shoulders now. Even with the glass out, her hands went back into his hair. "But...it's a big building, to cause that much force-to where our windows shattered and you were knocked off your feet…" She trailed off thinking, her hands running through his hair-she wasn't even aware that she had switched from glass hunting to full on head massage. "Could have been something else, I mean-I don't want to get all conspiracy theorist or anything. I just don't know what would have caused an explosion like that outside of...something strange, because a gas leak doesn't make sense…"

She was rambling, he was making noises of agreement. That was how Mrs. Hudson found them.

"I um...sorry to interrupt." she was doing a double take, and it was that which made Maddie realize what she was doing. Sherlock didn't seem keen to jump up and pretend like nothing was happening, so she just followed his lead and continued to rub-she wondered if the explosion gave him a headache too, or if this was a weird experiment to see how long she'd rub his head. "We'll have some men coming by to take measurements before it get's too late, and put up plastic. New windows tomorrow!"

And then she left, not so subtle in leaving a broom and dust pan in the corner-pointing it out to Maddie. She smiled, yeah she was aware Sherlock wouldn't do it. Actually, he probably would have-he was a grown man after all.

"Did you and John have a nice dinner?" He asked.

"It was alright…" She started, moving from rubbing his head to picking the towel up off his shoulders carefully, "Until you started to shoot up your flat."

"Bored." Was all he said, no apology.

She rolled her eyes. The towel was shook off into the bin and...where did their laundry go? She had her own washer and dryer tucked away in a closet in her bathroom, did they? This was followed by the odd thought of Sherlock doing laundry. On top of that while she was busy getting the glass out of the towel-Sherlock had indeed grabbed the broom and started to sweep.

So there she was-having finished combing out (and giving a massage) to Sherlock Holmes' head-watching him sweep.

"What?" He didn't need to look up to know she was watching him.

"Nothing...just, I was going to do that for you...it's kind of weird to see you sweeping."

There was a pull of his lips, a hint of a smile. "It is my flat, I do know how to clean."

"Where should I put this towel?" She said, instead of wanting to poke fun at his 'clean' flat-there was dust everywhere.

"There is a clothes hamper in my bedroom, you may put that there."

She nodded, and he went back to sweeping as she headed to the room he had pointed towards. It smelled deeply of his cologne, his bed was unmade but plush looking-as if he did like to indulge in sleep when nothing better was going on. All the furniture was dark, he had a dresser that was covered with different items, from a stethoscope to a jar that had change in it, a watch, and some cufflinks were scattered on the dresser as well. She tried not to dawdle, it wasn't nice to snoop (even though he did it to her). She found the hamper and tossed it in. She was overwhelmed by how...normal it was.

"What did you think?" He asked her, he was crouched and doing his best to sweep bits of broken glass and dirt into the dust pan. She moved to help, he stayed bent down holding the dust pan and she used the broom to lead the glass into it.

"Normal."

"Normal?"

"I don't know what I was expecting. It was just...a nice normal room. If anything your bed looks nicer than I imagined, and it smells good."

He looked up at her and she gulped, even in a dressing gown he looked nice. She was trying to stick to the mantra of 'no time for a crush on the neighbor' but that was crumbling. "Smells good?"

"Yes, it smells like your cologne. It's nice, not overpowering like some."

One last sweep and he was up, and she was there holding the broom. It was then when voices were heard coming up the stairs (for some reason it seemed like the boys kept their door open more often than not).

"Ah, that looks better without all that glass everywhere. Got the repairman here to take the measurements and hang up plastic for tonight-he'll start here, then go down to Maddie's." Mrs. Hudson said with a smile, as if she really wasn't bothered by what had happened.

Maddie didn't like the repairman. His eyes seemed to linger on her for too long, before looking over the rest of the flat. He was tall and thin, but more built than Sherlock. He had day old stubble, and really didn't say anything-just a nod before taking his supplies to the window. She glanced over to Sherlock but he didn't seem to look as if he noticed anything. It was probably all in her head.

"I should get downstairs then, clean up my own glass...plus my Dad should be calling sometime." She explained, only slightly embarrassed by the mention of a phone call from her Dad-it made her feel like a child.

Sherlock nodded, "Thank you." He didn't have to go on, she knew he meant his hair, his head, maybe even helping him sweep.

She smiled, "You're welcome."

Maybe it was the emotions, the worry over everything under the sun with her step-father, the shooting, the explosion...but she did to Sherlock what she had been doing to John for awhile now.

She hugged him.

He didn't hug back, which was something she expected. He looked a bit shocked when she pulled away-as if he couldn't believe she did that. She wondered if people hugged him at all...ever. "Have a good night Sherlock."

She left his flat, heading down to her own-carefully taking the steps on her still sore foot. She wasn't going to feel bad for the hug. She hugged people she cared about, it wasn't a long list of people-but she did. She did have to admit there might have been a crush. A tiny crush. Like the tiny crush she developed on Agent Coulson when she was a teenager (after he saved her, but before she started working for him).

Once in her flat she set about cleaning up the glass, and looking at her phone. Her Dad normally called by then. She wondered if they were now approaching the time when he got too distracted for their calls, there were only two times before when he had to text early in the day to tell her he wouldn't be able to call that night. While she waited for the repairman to come down to her flat she tried to call her Dad. No answer.

Well, that was a bummer.

She was starting to get tired too. It wasn't long until the tall and slightly irksome repairman came down her stairs after a quick knock. She had just finished eating (did she ever stop?) a bowl of ice cream.

"Just the one?" The man asked.

"Yeah, none of the others blew." She confirmed. He nodded and looked her over again in a way that made her stomach feel like eating ice cream had been a bad idea.

Yet he was quiet, he simply started to measure her windows before taping them up. She was just being paranoid. If this kept up, she'd be going back to therapy. He left saying he would be back the following night, probably after three with new windows to install. Following him up the steps, she bid him farewell and locked her door behind him.

**Mads**: Hey Dad, no phone call? Hope all is well. Love you.

* * *

John had came back the following morning, winded and worried, making sure he and everyone else was okay. It was only minutes after John arrived that Lestrade called. Sherlock had a feeling the previous night, that his boredom would finally be gone. It seemed as if he was correct.

Instead of thinking about the possibility of adventure on the cab ride to Scotland Yard, he thought about Maddie. Namely he thought about how her hands felt on his head, and how surprised she was at his bedroom. He was human after all (even though he did try his best to suppress it sometimes). He didn't know what to think about the woman anymore. She had secrets, worked for Mycroft, yet at the same time she was open. She didn't mind him poking around her flat, she accepted him and John into her life easily-to the point of it feeling like she had always been around. She was smart...very smart, but didn't show it like he did. The only time she seemed to show it was if he asked a question, whenever he did that, her answers were well thought out-intelligent.

When they made it to Scotland Yard, John had to prod Sherlock to get him out of his thoughts. He had been trying to decide where to categorize Maddie in his life. Who was she to him?

Quickly any thoughts on that subject were abolished as he walked through the doors following John. It seemed no matter when or why he was there people stopped working. It always felt like all eyes were on him. He clenched his jaw and gave a withering glare to anyone that met his eyes. He didn't understand their fascination-maybe if they spent more time working and less time focusing on him they'd get work done.

"You like the funny cases don't you?" Lestrade had found them almost immediately, "The surprising ones…"

"Obviously."

"Then you're going to love this."

He followed on, taking note of Donovan who per usual looked as if she had just come from shagging Anderson-really, it was obvious-how did no one else notice that? The envelope had Sherlock's name on it, and he could only wonder what was about to get started. It took a few moments looking in his mind palace to realize what type of paper it was, where it was from. No prints, of course there were no prints.

He would admit, the phone surprised him. What surprised him more was Lestrade announcing that everyone read John's blog. Of course they did. Now it seemed that someone else was reading the blog as well, someone who wanted to toy with him.

The message was unnerving, but he knew the sound and the meaning right away-there was going to be another explosion. It had been quite obvious it wasn't a gas leak after all, even Maddie knew that much. What made his stomach drop and his mouth go dry was the picture that followed.

When he didn't say anything (he was too busy thinking of all the scenarios-and a lot of them were not good), John took the time to look over his shoulder. "Jesus, that's Maddie's place."

John was running before Sherlock, when he started to follow John, he could hear Lestrade's steps trailing after them. He wasn't sure what he should think, it was a picture of Maddie's flat-there was no sign of her at all, but it was recent-he couldn't tell by the picture if it was days and days ago while she was out, or if it was that day. He worried, his stomach churned, and he followed into the cab that John had hailed.

The worry was made worse when she wasn't answering his texts he was sending as soon as they got into the cab.

Is this what his brother warned him about...caring too much? Rushing off with no plan. For all they knew it was another bomb sitting there ready to blow them sky high-but he didn't care, he just had to make sure she was okay.

* * *

Standing under the shower head she tried not to think about every little thing that was going on in her life. No word from anyone, not her Dad, not Pepper, even Coulson didn't respond to two e-mails she sent about her work. There was only one note in her e-mail when she woke up, which was simply to go through a certain set of books that had yet to be translated and find anything regarding something called the 'tesseract'.

Which was how she spent her morning. Book after book, flag after flag she sent e-mails to her higher ups. It was slightly unnerving and made her wonder if it was connected to her Dad not calling her-after all Coulson seemed to indicate that her Dad would find himself busy sooner rather than later.

She managed to go through all the books in the span of five hours (she had the unfortunate blessing to wake up with no ability to fall back to sleep at five in the morning). It was why her shower came late.

She was wondering what the rest of her day would be like, and pondered going out until she remembered the repairman would be back to fix the windows. It made her shudder a little bit, he was creepy. She went about the business of forgetting he was creepy by turning her long hair into a mohawk thanks to shampoo. Maybe just a relaxing day in with a book, a fiction book-not some old and musty book would do her well, or maybe she could get Molly to do something with her.

She was in the middle of rinsing off all the suds she accumulated on her body when she heard it. At first it was faint, and then it was very clear.

"Maddie!" Her name, it was called not just by John, but as she turned off her water she heard a very frantic (wow) Sherlock as well. She barely had time to pull her robe on before it was Sherlock who was busting into her bathroom.

It was only moments after that John appeared.

Followed by a gray haired man she had never seen before.

All in her bathroom.

She was standing there wide eyed, trying to come up with something to say. There really wasn't much she could think of, all she could think of was how Sherlock was staring at her.

She was standing in a puddle, one foot taking the brunt of her weight. Since she hadn't been able to grab a towel in her haste her hair was dripping, her robe was clinging to her body-and what had once been a modest robe turned into what she could only assume was something you could use for a wet tee shirt contest. She wasn't sure if she wanted to cry or laugh.

John had the decency to look away, the gray haired man did too after muttering "Christ", but Sherlock just looked at her.

"This seems like a really stupid question, but is there a reason why all of you are here?" She crossed her arms, trying to keep any shred of modesty she had left (hey at least she had time to put on the robe-however soaked it may be). "Without knocking."

It was John that answered, "We got a text of a photo...it was your living room."

She closed her eyes, hold it together. Hold it together.

"Repeat that?"

The man, the one she didn't know spoke. "We got a package at Scotland Yard for Sherlock, it had a phone, on it was a picture of your flat…"

"Okay…" She interrupted, "How about I dry off and get dressed, and you all...not stand in my bathroom doorway."

That got them moving, except for Sherlock. Sherlock stayed put for a moment, "You're okay?"

His tone was caring, extremely caring. It was soft, it was worried, she frowned. "Yeah, I'm fine-just...kind of soaked."

When he took a step forward, she couldn't help but take a step back. It was that fear that had been left in her from when she was a teen. "Just let me get dressed and I'll come out and dazzle you with how okay I am."

He nodded and left. She wondered if he was as confused by everything as she was.

Sherlock did shut the door after him, it was only a few minutes after that she heard a ringing of a phone-shrill and loud. It made her wonder what was going on. She toweled off in record speed, leaving her robe soaking in the puddle on the floor along with the discarded towel. Hair was tossed up in a clip, she would deal with it later. Clothes were tugged on, she unfortunately had just grabbed whatever when she had headed into the bathroom. This meant she was pulling on jeans that were so well worn they had holes in the knees, shins, and at the back pockets-normally that wasn't bad, but her panties had dogs on them, and she was pretty sure the plaid button up she tossed on did not cover that.

Wonderful. Maybe this would teach her to throw worn clothes out.

The only thing to keep her from panicking was her sheer (and blind-according to her Dad) trust in SHIELD. They would have contacted her had they thought Connor left the states...right? So this just had to be a Sherlock the detective thing and unfortunately that meant Baker Street as a whole being a target.

Maddie did take the time (while breathing and telling herself everything was okay) to re-bandage her foot. It wasn't as good as Johns bandage job, but it was better than nothing-even as small as it was the last thing she wanted was an infected cut on her foot.

All the men ceased talking when she came out. The gray haired man had been standing by her book case-everyone seemed to go for her book case for some reason, it didn't matter where she was. John was standing, and Sherlock was inspecting a pair of...shoes.

Mens shoes, sneakers, they looked old but cared for.

"Sorry to barge in on you Miss, these two thought you were in trouble." The man by her bookcase moved, "Detective Inspector Lestrade." He introduced himself.

"Um, Madeline O'Brien...Maddie…"

She shook his hand, it was cold but a nice grip. She figured this was who Sherlock worked for while working with the police.

"Well, thankfully whoever left...shoes...didn't seem to bother me." Although it made her wonder what would have happened if she had been present in the room.

"You'll have to change your locks." John said, and she nodded. She would get Mrs. Hudson to help her figure out who to call on that.

"We need to get these to St. Barts." Sherlock said, finally looking up from the shoes. "I want to examine them, that's the best place."

In the end, no one would be able to stay with her-and they all talked about it. If someone had gotten in to leave the shoes before, they could do so again-at least that was Lestrade and John's thought, Sherlock had the good sense to believe that whoever was behind it wouldn't bother her again-that whoever had broke in simply did so in order to "show off" and show that they could.

"I'll work with Mrs. Hudson and have the locks changed today." She told them, "I'll make sure you two get your copies of the key."

Lestrade left first, John gave her a hug and left after saying he would hail him and Sherlock a cab. Leaving just Sherlock there, holding the shoes in one hand, and looking over her awkwardly.

"Sorry for bursting in…" He started, and she blinked-so he had thanked her recently and apologized? It was strange, it was as if ever since she cried on him he was acting different-and not in a bad way.

"It's okay, I mean-not how I wanted three grown men to see me-but I understand why you did." She paused, "You were worried?"

There was a moment of silence.

A nod.

"I have to go, there is a case now." He looked like he was waiting for something.

OH.

She moved, hugging him. She felt his chin on the top of her head but other than that he didn't move into the hug. "Be safe!"

"Get the locks changed." He told her, and then he was off. Apparently that was what he wanted. She tried to understand it, but wasn't sure if it was anything to be understood. He didn't always seem to read social cues that well, so maybe he just figured that's what they did now after she did it once and after watching her and John hug all the time. She hadn't intended on hugging him just then, but certainly didn't mind it.

Her front door slammed shut, and she looked around her apartment feeling slightly unsure. Apparently someone who wasn't invited had simply...slipped in. That was unnerving. She grabbed her phone before heading up to Mrs. Hudson's flat. She had many missed texts, all from Sherlock and John. They had been trying to get a hold of her. No wonder the panic when they couldn't reach her.

However, it was nice to know they cared.

Mrs. Hudson had already been on the case, apparently the boys had made so much noise that she was aware of what was going on. Already she arranged for the repairman to not only fix her window but her lock as well. Maddie didn't stay with Mrs. Hudson for long, the woman was going out, and only stayed long enough to make sure Maddie really was okay (and would have stayed longer had Maddie requested it). She didn't mind, telling the woman she'd probably wait to get her lock and window fixed before going out herself-maybe grabbing a drink with Molly or something.

The next hour went by with Maddie being paranoid at every single noise. The paranoia stayed strong as she decided to get some random work done while eating a bowl of popcorn for lunch. Work was always a good distraction for her, she tended to be an obsessive thinker sometimes so if she could lose herself in her work it meant she wasn't sitting there thinking about all the bad things that might happen.

However she was not lost enough, when her phone alert went off she jumped sky high.

**Molly**: Sherlock thinks Jim is gay.

It was a simple statement, which made her frown. Molly seemed to really like Jim. She talked about him a lot. Yet, if Sherlock thought Jim was gay-he probably was gay.

**Molly**: Jim slipped Sherlock his number.

**Mads:** I'm sure he wasn't kind about telling you either?

She meant Sherlock. She wasn't deluded enough to think he could give that kind of news gently. He probably thought giving that news in the first place was being gentle about it.

**Molly**: No. Drinks tonight? I need to get away from this.

She wondered if 'this' was Sherlock or if it was just the idea of Jim being gay-or the everlasting search of trying to find a mate. She glanced at the clock, in a few minutes the repairman would be there (hopefully).

**Mads:** Meet at six?

That would give the repair guy enough time to do the windows and lock she figured, and give Maddie enough time to get ready. She liked dressing up (when she didn't have to do it all the time).

**Molly**: Perfect, meet at the usual place?

**Mads**: See you then!

Their usual place was a little pub near wear Molly lived. It was tucked away, and hardly got any traffic-those that did wander in were usually locals. It was one of the only pubs where Maddie felt like she could hear herself think since they kept the noise down. They had good food too.

She was in the middle of taking care of her work when the repairman showed up. He had all kinds of tools with him, and still seemed extremely...creepy. It probably didn't help that her place had been broken into-he was probably a fine upstanding gentleman and she was just projecting.

She left him to his own devices while he worked, and she focused on getting ready. If she sat there watching him like a hawk she would just drive herself insane. She took the time to curl her hair, something she normally didn't do-mostly due to having no real reason to or wanting to take the time. She was in the middle of the process when her phone went off, she heard it from the bathroom and had to take the time to run down the hall to where her phone was sitting on the kitchen table, finally her Dad.

**Dad**: Got something big going on right now kiddo, everything is okay. No training tomorrow. Will call when this is over. Love you.

First was the dance of joy from getting to miss self defense. She liked it, but honestly a break would be nice-plus it meant she could stay out late with Molly without any ill consequence. She knew better than to ask her dad questions about what was going on. She knew something big had been coming up, and with no one bothering to answer her e-mails or texts she really wasn't surprised over his text.

**Mads**: Ok, love you too Dad-be safe.

And that was that. She sighed, even with her normal life here in London she still managed to get involved in things due to knowing Sherlock apparently. It was different there though, it was at least her choice to live there (rationalizing that while Mycroft obviously had a hand in getting Mrs. Hudson's ad to her, he could not have made the choice FOR her...she made the choice). Here she was living HER life, not her life under IRON MAN'S life.

She finished her hair. It looked good. Normally it was wavy but now it was more curly, more "done" up. It took her from a twenty something to older, less childish. She peeked out to see the repairman still working at her window, and went back to starting her make-up.

Her phone went off.

**SH:** Be safe with Molly.

She blinked. How did he know that? She frowned, well he was Sherlock of course he knew. Probably knew the moment Molly took out her phone to text. Figured.

**Mads**: You could have told her nicer. I think she really liked him.

**SH**: He wasn't good for her. When will you be back?

Concern? No. Probably just him wanting to know due to the recent break in-if that hadn't happened he probably wouldn't have cared.

**Mads**: Late, no self defense in the morning. I'll get keys made sometime tomorrow for you and John.

**SH:** Might be on the case for awhile.

**Mads**: Dangerous?

**SH:** Not in particular.

**Mads**: Be safe regardless, you never know.

So there she was wishing two men in her life to be safe. It was strange. She didn't want to read too much into it. She finished her make up, it was simple and not over the top-the curls were over the top enough. When she came out, intending to go into the bedroom and change her jeans the repairman was already done with the window.

"Just the locks now, here are the keys for the ones I'm installing. I'll let you know when I'm done and then see myself out." His eyes looked dead.

"Um...t..thank you."

He nodded and placed the keys on her table, heading up the stairs and leaving her standing there wondering if she was still just simply paranoid or if there really was something off by the man.

Either way when she went to change her jeans she locked her bedroom door. Worn jeans tossed back into her closet to be worn again some other time or if she was smart-thrown out, and black skinny jeans pulled on to replace the worn jeans. All in all she figured she looked good, decent even.

Normally once Molly and Maddie met up they really didn't do much walking so she decided she could get away with wearing her black ballet flats (they tended to leave angry red marks on her pinky toes if she wore them for too long while walking) which wouldn't leave the bottom of her foot hurting too bad. She was packing her purse up, book, extra lip gloss, cash, new keys onto her key chain-old keys removed, when her phone went off again.

**Coulson**: Good work on the translations today.

She frowned, days without contact and now this? Especially considering the text from her Dad earlier.

**Mads**: Thanks. Is something going on?

**Coulson**: It's just going to be one of those weeks.

She sighed, yeah it did seem to be one of those weeks-for everyone. When it rained it poured.

**Mads**: Well with whatever it is, be careful.

**Coulson:** Will do. (No word on Connor yet either, we did get a few bodies though-burnt, they're testing them. I'll let you know.)

**Mads:** Thanks.

She didn't know what else to say to that, so instead she just chewed on her bottom lip and looked down at her phone. She didn't want to think her step-father was dead (not because she didn't want him to die, she did in fact wish death upon him) and have it turn out he wasn't. She didn't want to lower her guard to that-but there had to be some reason Coulson was telling her that. Probably found some kind of clue to indicate that the bodies were from the prison and they were going on the assumption one of them was Connor.

Well, it was better than nothing.

"All done!" The repair man shouted down.

"Thanks, have a good night!" She could already hear the front door shutting, followed by the creaking of the stairs up to the boys flat to repair their windows. A glance to the clock told her she spent just enough time getting ready and waiting for him to leave, sparing her at least twenty minutes to grab a cab and get to the pub. She'd be there ten minutes early at the rate she was going which was perfect.

Between grabbing a cab and the drive to the pub she did make it ten minutes before Molly was supposed to show. It gave her time to grab a drink from the bar, a beer instead of her normal at home favorite, wine. She grabbed their usual table in the corner by a large window which was perfect for people watching.

Perfect for her to relax for a few minutes with a beer before Molly arrived.

* * *

"She's gone." The man said as soon as he heard the other line pick up. He was aware they couldn't afford to waste any time now that everything was starting to fall into place.

"Do you know where?"

"I got a look at her phone, it just said she was meeting Molly at some pub-she called it their usual."

"So predictable." The voice on the other end said, "Did you put the bugs into place?"

"In all the windows, could be a bit touch and go depending on the weather-but we should be able to hear anything that goes on crystal clear."

"Good."

"Connor?"

"Oh he's doing wonderfully, he's taken to this rather well. Didn't realize he'd be so well with bomb work."

"It seems like he was worth the hassle."

"Yes, yes it does." There was a pause, and a sigh…it was a happy sigh-the sigh of someone utterly content with the world. Honestly Sebastian never felt that way. To be fair, Sebastian did a lot of grunt work compared to Moriarty. Which explained why he was installing windows (which would probably leak eventually-he wasn't very good at it).

"Are we grabbing the girl tonight? Is that too early?"

"Oh no, it's perfect timing. Connor is like a rabid dog, I don't think he could possibly wait any longer to get a taste of her, and we need to be able to keep him in line for whats to come-and well, Mr. Holmes is being kept very busy right now so he won't notice…"

It certainly was going to get interesting.

They bid farewell, intending on meeting up after the girl was grabbed. He finished installing the windows, whistling.

It was going to be a good payday coming up.

* * *

Molly had changed after work, and was clearly ready to get her drink on. After spotting Maddie at their table she had dumped her purse and coat with Maddie, and headed to the bar with a mission. She came back a few minutes later to an amused Maddie proclaiming, "I ordered us the good chips, no need to watch my hips right now." bitterly. She also came with two shots filled with some kind of red liquid, another beer for Maddie (the dear girl saw her current beer was nearly empty), and a pink drink for herself that had bits of fruit in it.

"You didn't have to watch your hips in the first place." Maddie said as Molly handed her one of the shots.

"Well here is to drinking my feelings away and regretting the hangover tomorrow."

They touched their shot glasses together in a little clink-and down the drinks went. Surprising, tasted like strawberries-not bad.

It was the first time she had seen Molly order a shot, in fact it was the first time she seen Molly drink something other than wine. She didn't plan on getting completely pissed, but there was nothing wrong with a shot here or there with her beers.

"I mean, why'd he ask me out in the first place if he was gay? We had so many dates…" Molly complained with a frown.

"Maybe he was trying to see if he wasn't gay? Like, maybe he thought you were pretty and interesting and wanted to see? Or maybe he's just a complete douche." Maddie could always be sympathetic, with seemingly everyone; good or bad.

"And Sherlock had to be awful about it!"

It was going to be a long night.

When midnight rolled around, and Molly proclaimed "Ugh, I have work in seven hours." they called it quits. At how much they drank, for how long, Maddie figured Molly would still be drunk in seven hours. Her intention of not drinking that much had went away the longer she and Maddie were at the pub.

Good thing Molly worked with dead people.

They had fun, first Molly complained about Jim, then Sherlock, then back to Jim, then she talked about a cat, Toby. This was followed with them (badly) playing darts, and eating copious amount of chips with cheese sauce. It had been the kind of night they both needed. They walked together in the cold back to Molly's flat, it was only a few blocks away and Molly insisted she would walk home instead of paying for a cab for a few blocks. Maddie while very intoxicated was not so intoxicated that she would let her friend walk alone. First she'd walk with Molly to her place, then she'd flag a cab and head to Baker Street. Easy.

And it was, easy. They hugged and Maddie watched Molly walk up and into her building, a wave given before she turned. It was cold, Molly's flat was just about ten feet away from the main road where she could catch a cab. She didn't think ten feet would be that dangerous.

Maddie was so caught up in thinking about how much fun the night had been to notice that there was someone behind her.

She didn't even have the chance to make a sound before the drug entered her system, putting her to sleep so she didn't fight back as they stuffed her into a car.

Ten feet, that was all that there had been between her and the safety of the main road. Just ten feet.

How unlucky.

* * *

**Molly:** I'm still hungover from last night, remind me not to drink like that on a work night. (12:34)

**John**: After this case we need to have dinner, it can even be takeaway. (13:56)

**Molly:** Still Sleeping it off? Lucky girl. (14:13)

**SH**: Keys? (16:22)

**SH:** Where are you? (16:40)

**SH:** Just drop the keys off in our flat whenever you acknowledge your phone-did you really drink that much? (16:45)

**Molly:** Maddie, did I say something wrong last night-are you mad? (16:47)

* * *

Notes:

A little bit of a cliffhanger! Oh, I feel so bad. Hopefully I can have the next chapter posted before the weekend. The texts at the end were time stamped to show the passing of time-so hopefully that made sense.

Also is it clear (yet subtle) that this is taking place during the Avengers movie? I'm trying to add hints without being flashy about it.

I'm trying to add more Sherlock/Maddie (it would be super easy for me to fall into just talking about John/Maddie's friendship-they rock), I won't lie-any relationship OC or not is going to make Sherlock seem a little out of character at this point. However, I will try my hardest to stay true to his roots and Maddie's roots as well as I smoosh them together.

So thank you again for reading, feel free to let me know what you think and have a wonderful day!


	8. Chapter 7

**Fade Into You**

**Rating:** R

**Notes:** This is the second half of The Great Game, and I've been looking forward to this chapter for a long time. Looking through wiki pages, the timing for The Great Game is only over a period of a few short days (if you include the lead up to it). I'm going to keep that pace/timeline going so we don't end up spending three more chapters on this one episode.

There is torture in this chapter, but I've warned you enough so I don't think you're coming into it blindly.

* * *

**Chapter Seven:** The Great Game Pt II

_If one curses his father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in utter darkness._

_Proverbs 20:20_

Ice cold water splashed over her. It was cause for a rude awakening. She sucked in a deep breath of air, shuddered, and coughed.

"Dammit Nat, water again?"

She blinked her eyes open, they were scratchy and felt as if she had slept with her make up on. She probably had, she didn't even remember getting home the night before. Her head was throbbing, a pulsating that made her utterly aware she drank too much the night before. It wasn't until the light hit her eyes that she felt something was...off. Her flat, no matter what she did never had bright light. At least, not the bright florescent light that was currently screaming down on her.

Then the thought…Nat wasn't even supposed to be around that day to splash ice cold water on her. That thought made her heart speed up. She blinked a few times, pushing out whatever sleep that had been clinging to her. When her eyes adjusted to the light she realized she was in a locker room, pale blue lockers were lined up behind a bench in front of her. The more her senses woke up, the more she realized she was in trouble. Her wrists were locked together behind her, when she tugged on them they proved to also be locked to the chair she was sitting on.

She was going to be sick, her stomach churned.

Maddie realized that there was someone behind her when she heard a shoe scuffing on the tile floor. The sound of something falling to the ground was next, a hollow sound, she assumed it was whatever had been used to splash the icy water onto her. Water dripped off the tip of her nose, bothersome since she couldn't move her hands to wipe her face dry.

When she felt the hand drop onto her shoulder, followed by a squeeze, her mind froze. It was a dream, it had to be a dream. She drank too much, got home, and now she was dreaming. It was a dream.

It had to be. A stress induced dream from everything that was going on.

The hand trailed, she could feel fingers combing through her hair.

She couldn't help how her body trembled. It was a dream. She would wake up and Sherlock would be pounding on the door demanding use of her kitchen table.

Maddie was slightly aware there was the smell of chlorine in the air.

It had to be a dream.

The hand had moved to the base of her skull, still wrapped up in her hair, and she was scared. How could she not be? She was hopeful it was a dream, but it didn't feel like a dream. In a sudden flash of pain her head was jerked back. It was such a quick movement, that for a moment she wondered if her neck was broke.

Her neck wasn't broken.

This wasn't a dream.

_"Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol."_ His thick southern drawl was hard to take after living out of the south for so long. One hand was wrapped around her hair, keeping her neck pulled back at a painful angle, the other was holding open a well worn bible.

Connor.

No.

He smiled down at her, looking as pleased as he could possibly be. His grip on her hair tightened and she winced. He kept a good hold as he walked around to be in front of her, eventually letting go just when she felt like her hair might pull away from her scalp. This was her worst nightmare.

He crouched in front of her, the smile never leaving his face.

It was eerie.

She was terrified.

She wanted Sherlock.

It wasn't her Dad that her mind went to, but to Sherlock. Odd considering one was a real honest to God superhero and the other was just...a detective.

Connor reached out, his fingers grazing the side of her face. It was uncomfortable. Her heart was pounding. "Still lookin' like a southern belle." He told her, his fingers dropping away from her face to her neck, then to the collar of her shirt.

"Auw, don't cry sweet pea-it won't hurt that bad." Apologetic voice, old pet name, horrible threat. She remembered the last time he was with her, and it did hurt quite badly.

Connor was quiet for a long time as he just stayed crouched in front of her. She didn't know what to do, what to think, if she should look at him, or shut her eyes. Maddie didn't understand what she had done to deserve this. Her life was getting back on track...she had her own life finally, she was living…

"I think what hurt the most was having you say those things 'bout me in front of the judge...I know it was just that...adulterer filling' your head with nonsense." He was talking about Tony. "Just as confused as Eve was when she took the apple."

He moved, putting his bible down on a chair nearby, followed by the black jacket he had been wearing. Connor was tall, and even after ten years in jail he didn't look worse for wear. A few new scars she could see on his arms, and a jagged one on his neck but other than that he hardly looked any different.

He was going on about the nature of her sin, quoting the bible, and pacing around in such a way that it made her feel as if she was fourteen again listening to one of his sermons. Connor had always been passionate about his beliefs, and through his years in prison it sounded like the passion only grew.

Before she knew it, he was producing a knife out of a pocket in his pants. It was a serrated switch blade that by looks alone made her want to pass out.

Terrified was an understatement.

He was waving the knife in her face when he asked, "Do ya' have anything to say?"

Her mind raced, what answer was going to keep him happy? The longer he stayed happy and talking, the longer she stayed in one piece. The longer she gave Sherlock to find her-if he even knew she was gone. She didn't know how long she had been out, the locker room was brightly lit but there were no clocks nor were there any windows.

"No sir."

"No?" His tone clearly stated that she had said the wrong thing. "I spend ten years of my life locked away because you decided you don't know what 'honor thy father' means and you have nothing to say to me?"

"I don't see my father around here anywhere, my father certainly isn't you."

So, that was probably the stupidest thing she could have said just then. Way to go Maddie, you're supposed to be smart.

He struck her across her face with the back of his free hand, "Bitch I raised you! I raised you! I AM your father."

Her face stung, she kept her mouth shut. Her head was pounding even worse.

She felt the cool metal of the knife blade against her skin, at her neck. She was starting to uncontrollably cry, where tears fell but she wasn't quite sobbing in hysterics...yet. "It hurts when you say stuff like that, after I took care of you and your momma." He told her, while the knife had started to tear into her shirt, ruining the material. "No letters, no cards, silence for ten years. Y'know how that makes me feel?"

She felt the tip of the blade cut into her chest, looking down she could see how he cut a small thin line at her chest right before her bra started. "Makes me feel hurt." He pointedly said while the knife dragged another line, this time below her bra. They weren't deep cuts, but they were deep enough to hurt, deep enough to bleed while he was busy cutting the fabric of her shirt even more-basically cutting it away from her body.

After tossing her tattered shirt to the side, his free hand rubbed against one of the scars he had left on her from the last incident. She wanted to beg him to stop, to not hurt her again. Tied to a chair, her clothes being cut away, her insane stepfather going on and on-it made her realize this was one of the many reasons she took self defense.

Of course they didn't get to the chapter about getting out of a situation with handcuffs, nor did they really touch on how to fight back when you were so terrified that you were shaking, feeling like you were going to throw up, and had a heart pounding so fast you were surprised you weren't already dead. All she could do was sit there and hope and pray that someone would find her.

As he struck her once more leaving a copper taste in her mouth, she came to the quick conclusion-she was going to be lucky to survive this, let alone have anyone find her.

* * *

Maddie did not know how much time went by. It had gotten to the point where she was doing everything she could to just stay inside her own head and not acknowledge anything that was happening to her. Connor wouldn't let her stay in her own head, he kept trying to engage her in conversation, and anytime she didn't answer him quickly enough there was a new flash of pain. It was worse when some of her comments were sarcastic (Thanks Stark genetics).

She had forgotten what true pain had felt like. Her busted up foot from a broken glass shard? That was absolutely nothing compared to what she had been going through. The pain still continued even after he ceased hitting and cutting her. He had stopped when his phone went off, and after a quick conversation which was mostly him going 'mmhm, okay, mmhm, mmhm' he left her.

When he left she cried even harder than she had been. Her rational mind was collecting the facts about how likely it would be for her to make it out alive. Her own Dad was busy, there was no way he would have known she had been abducted. Mycroft with his cameras? Maybe, but just like with her Dad if something was going on he probably wouldn't have noticed her missing, at least not until a few days went by with no work done. Sherlock and John? On a case last she knew, the last few times they were on a case they would go days without seeing her.

So...did that mean it was up to her? Maybe. She was cold, and all of her clothes (with the exception of her panties-the ones with the dogs all over them) had been cut off. The only thing she really could do was jiggle the handcuffs, try her hardest to pull her wrists through. It was clear that it wasn't something that would work, all it served to do was add to the pain the rest of her body was in.

She hated looking down, her body was a wasteland of new cuts and old punishments. Connor had hit her both back handed and closed fist, her pale body already discoloring in different places. When he hadn't been hitting her he had been cutting her, assuring her that he was "Still quite good with a knife…" and he was-in the sense that he was quite capable of inflicting a lot of pain with his cutting. All of the cuts shallow enough to where she was in no danger of bleeding to death, but deep enough to cause pain, discomfort as the blood dripped slowly.

She had been lucky so far (if you could call what she had been through so far lucky), he kept away from the sexual side of things-at least for the most part. He took the time to grip her breasts and drag the blade lightly across one, but other than that (and a quick cupping to her bottom half outside of her panties) he had been more interested in hurting her, telling her that "There was always another day."

That part had made her throw up. Bile mostly, it had been a long enough time to where it seemed like her drinking and eating with Molly had been at least a day previous. When she threw up she realized why she was in the locker room. It was so he wouldn't make a mess with her, Connor explained as he filled up a bucket with ice cold water, only to throw it on her and wash away what she had puked up down a drain in the floor nearby.

It seemed like only a few minutes had went by, when the door to the locker room loudly opened. She went from struggling very intensely with her handcuffs to sitting quietly when that door opened. Her eyes felt swollen from all the crying, but they were wide open as she held her breath waiting for Connor to walk back in.

It wasn't just Connor. It was the repairman from Baker Street as well, both tall and lanky, both dragging an unconscious body to the bench across from her. John. Lovely brotherly John. Seeing him, she couldn't help how her sobbing was starting to turn into flat out hysterics.

She didn't know what to think. She didn't know why Connor was with the repairman, he was smart, but she didn't think he was smart enough to rig all of it up. The situation was made more confusing as they put something on John. It was a vest of some sort, and when she was able to see it clearly there was no denying what it was.

A bomb.

Wonderful.

When they finished rigging him up in both the vest and a not-so-stylish jacket, John's hands were cuffed. He wasn't as secured as Maddie, his hands cuffed together in front instead of in back. Probably trusted he wasn't going to do anything funny while a bomb was strapped to his chest.

The repairman left, talking about having to get into position or something, leaving Connor to come back over to Maddie. "You should have picked yourself some bettah friends."

His hand had returned to her, fingers sprawled out over her shoulder as he knelled in front of her. "Oh how I prayed for you, I did...Lord answered my prayers in a very strange way. Never thought I'd see London."

She shuddered as he buried his face in her lap. His arms were wrapped around her, getting tighter and tighter. "Such a shame it was in order to see you like this, living like a heathen in that house with those men." Of course he conveniently forgot that she lived in the basement and really didn't 'share' the house.

"You had so much hope, even going around with me touring the country playing your piano you never left the Lord." His fingers were digging into her back now, his voice was muffled against her lap, she couldn't help but cry out a little as his nails dragged into her skin. "I remember givin' a sermon in Mississippi, you were still a lil' one, you had finished playing and I started the congregation in prayer and you had demanded a piggy back ride...remember that?" Honestly she couldn't remember anything at that point with him digging into her flesh, she didn't even notice John had been stirring. "So I gave my sermon with you on my back...on my back. My lil' girl…"

It was too much, it hurt, she couldn't help it: "Please, please you're hurting me."

"Hurting you? Hurting you?! You don't know hurt!" He certainly made sure she did then, he had pushed up away from her so fast, with a single blow to her side. Not only did something inside of her crack, but her chair toppled over leaving her laying on the cold tile crying. He had broken her rib, maybe more than one-but with slow ragged breaths she knew at least one was broken. It hurt.

Everything hurt.

Make it stop, make it stop.

"Wh...what...Maddie?!"

Great, John was awake.

Connor was looming over her as she was drawing in breaths. They were shallow intakes of air that made her side explode with pain.

"Get away from her!" John again, his voice was pure rage-she didn't think she had ever heard him sound like that. Because of how Connor was standing she couldn't quite see John, but could only assume how red in the face he was getting.

"You'd best sit tight now, don't want any sudden movements causin' that bomb strapped to your chest to go off now do we?"

"Oh God." Was all she heard John say, followed by him taking in a deep breath. Just as she was getting semi-comfortable on the freezing cold floor, Connor grabbed her chair and righted her. If she had anything left in her stomach she would have puked at that sudden movement, instead she shuddered, and tried her hardest not to make eye contact with John.

She felt so ashamed he had to see her like this, ashamed that he was in there with her-strapped to a bomb. She couldn't decide if this was all her fault, or if there was something more-Connor acting with the repairman was one thing, but just the simple act of breaking out of jail and getting to the UK (especially with SHIELD looking for him) just seemed...too big for him.

Connor's hand grabbed her jaw, tight. Forcing her to look up at him, to see that crazed look in his eyes. She could hardly remember a time where he didn't have that look. Years before her mother got sick, maybe. She did remember the good times, but they were so few and far between. When he took his hand away and backhanded her, John couldn't help but yell out again. It made the situation worse, having someone try to stick up for her.

It made her embarrassed, especially considering who her real dad was. She should have been able to have a witty comeback for every slap, every cut, every grab. Actually, she did-deep down in her head, but she was also scared. Connor took the time to grab at her breasts again, lingering on the one he had cut, grabbing in a way that made her cry out even as she tried so hard to hold her tongue.

Don't look at John. Don't look.

Connor had brought the knife out again, only to be interrupted by the ringing of his phone. A few terse words, followed by a sigh, "Looks like we'll have to play more later-gotta go get ready for the big night."

He tweaked her nose and patted her head as if she was a child, it had been followed by a harsh open handed hit to the back of her head, sending her vision blurry for a moment.

He left, whistling.

Leaving her and John tied up, one strapped nearly naked to a chair broken and battered, the other with a bomb strapped to his chest. This was not how she pictured her past meeting her present. Maddie had actually been hoping to keep her entire past hidden from her new life, forever and ever, especially now with friends thrown into the mix.

She could only imagine what she looked like. Her hair was damp from cold water being splashed over her, numerous cuts littered her body, and bruises-my god the bruises that were forming.

"You okay?"

No.

"Yeah, you?"

"Yeah."

It was quiet for a moment, and she summoned the courage to look up. He was staring at her, she frowned.

"Don't look at me like that."

"Christ Maddie, what's going on?"

She looked back down, biting hard on her tongue, trying to get herself not to cry.

"Sherlock will get us out of this." He told her, realizing that maybe now wasn't the best time for questions. She could only hope-she didn't feel like either of them would be getting out of there on their own. One wrong move on John's part and he would probably be blown to a million pieces-right along with her, and she personally couldn't move with the beating she had been given. Would Sherlock save them? Even when Coulson saved her the first time around, it was after Connor was already 'done' with her, leaving her for dead. Would Sherlock come before then?

"What day is it?"

"April first, was on my way to Sarah's when they grabbed me."

She was only missing a full entire day. She didn't know what to think about that, it felt like she had been there longer. Everything hurt.

"This was...our case, people got grabbed, strapped to a bomb, and forced to call Sherlock." John explained, "but why did they grab you too?"

"I don't know."

"Who was that guy?"

She looked away from him again, trying to figure it out herself. Connor was busted out of jail, he had been able to slip undetected from Louisiana to London. Someone had to help him. The repairman wasn't a repairman and was working with Connor. This also had to do with Sherlock, at least with John being there. The bombing, the shoes at her flat...how did Connor relate to Sherlock? There was a missing connection.

Why.

"Maddie…?"

She sniffled, trying to keep the tears away for now. She was starting to get tired, and her side was still throbbing badly. "I thought he was my father."

John looked like he wanted to swear, scream, or maybe just storm off.

"He...I grew up with him, my mom never told me he wasn't my father. He knew he wasn't, but didn't really seem to care that I wasn't his." She wished her hands were untied, her nose was starting to run. The runny nose added even more elegance to the 'recently tortured' couture she was currently exhibiting. "He started to get a little...meaner right before my Mom got sick, even worse after. It wasn't until...he hurt me, like this, and put me in the hospital...that I found out he wasn't my real father."

"It's okay Maddie, we'll get out of this...I'll make sure he doesn't hurt you again."

He looked like he really wanted to promise her that. Like he really believed he could protect her. Ever the soldier.

"Don't make promises you can't keep."

She chided, and a door slam echoed through the locker room causing them both to fall silent and be on alert. It was Connor coming back in, followed by another man-one Maddie had only seen previously in pictures. Jim.

Molly's gay boyfriend.

Seriously?

"Well, now isn't this interesting."

Dear God, Molly...how did you not know he was gay? The voice was a near dead give away, at least to Maddie.

"Sherlock is being predictable, how wouldn't he want to meet here in the middle of the night-where it all...started…" He produced something from a pocket, "Johnny boy, going to need you to wear this, we are going to have so much fun tonight-you obviously know the rules."

John only nodded, it seemed as if both Maddie and he were...shocked.

Jim was rough in how he shoved the earpiece onto John, making Maddie sit more alert than she had been, her back going rigid, her side throbbing with the movement. "Connor, if you will I would love for you to take John where he needs to be. Testing, testing-you hear that John?" Jim was speaking into a device, and as he moved closer to Maddie she was able to see that he also had an earpiece.

Connor moved, grabbing John by the back of his neck, forcing him to stand. "Maddie it's going to be okay." Was all John said, and Jim who was closer to her now, just gave a look-a tsk, shaking his head.

"Oh Dr. Watson, don't make promises you can't keep." He came to stand behind Maddie, his hand touching her bare shoulder-his palm was warm, clammy, it made her stomach flip around. "Don't speak out of turn…" Jim warned, his voice light, almost sounding as if he was on the verge of a song.

Connor led John away, the shorter man sparing a glance back at her, worried.

When they were out of sight Jim gave a little laugh, "Well he did a number on you Miss Stark." one of his fingers trailed on a still-bleeding cut on her left shoulder, "Imagine what Sherlock is going to think…"

She clenched and unclenched her jaw.

"You should really learn to close your blinds…" His weight was pressed onto her shoulders, she could feel him draping himself over her, his head pressed against the left side of her face, so close that she could smell his breath-spearmint. He put a phone in her line of vision, the picture on it was of her and Sherlock, on her sofa-he had a wine glass in one hand and was holding her to his chest with the other-the night she found out Connor escaped.

Jim moved away, coming to stand in front of her-dark eyes glancing up and down her body. "You know, I'll never understand the whole torture thing." He gave a shrug, "Then again, I have so many people to torture for me." He looked at his phone, "Tick tock."

Maddie stayed quiet. Her side was starting to hurt even worse, she had to focus on breathing slowly and evenly. Her mind was going, going, going trying to piece everything together, but it was getting foggy. It was getting hard to focus. She didn't like that.

"I need you to listen to me very, very carefully Miss. Stark." He crouched in front of her, "You fell into my game, gave me a lovely advantage too. This is a game you can't get out of, and the rules for you are simple...do not leave Baker Street. See, isn't that simple?" He gave a laugh, it made her stomach twist.

"I mean...you can, if you want Mrs. Hudson or Johnny boy to die...and wouldn't that just be a shame." He stood up, "You're such an advantage for me that I can't bare to see you leave, and I'm sure you'll have an offer to leave soon…" Why was he so invested in her staying? Jim was making it seem like this was all about Sherlock, but he also made it clear he knew who SHE was...so was he interested in her dad as well? Interested in going against Iron Man?

He gave a smile, "Do you understand?"

She didn't understand, at least not the grand scheme-but she understood his rules. She nodded.

"Wonderful, ah-he's just on time…" She could hear something, mumbling-he was close enough that she knew his earpiece was going off, but not close enough to hear what he was hearing, "See you in a bit."

And then he was gone, walking out on her as she listened to snippets of him talking.

"Evening...this is a turn-up, isn't it Sherlock. Bet you never saw this coming…"

And just when she thought she'd be alone for awhile to collect her thoughts, Connor came back.

* * *

He had better things to worry about than the women who lived in the basement. She hadn't been answering his texts, he had been sending them every so often while working on the case, only to get no response. Normally (unless she was sleeping) she always responded. He wouldn't say it bothered him, but it did.

When he was leaving Baker Street to go to the pool-and perhaps even more trouble-he stopped by her door. The new doorknob was shiny, and there was also a new deadbolt-without keys it would take some time to get into. It was almost midnight, he didn't bother knocking. He just stood there, staring at her door for a moment trying to figure out why she had been avoiding him and why it mattered to him.

He liked her hugs. No one other than his mother dared to hug him. It had been nice to feel her pressed against him, showing affection for him. It was strange, it was nice, he hated it. He was becoming weak.

He turned and tucked his coat closer, if she didn't respond to any of his texts by the next day he'd just break in. Maybe she was sick or something, after all pubs were breeding grounds for germs, logic said: she got sick and was just sleeping everything off.

He pushed it out of his mind as he gave the address of the pool to the cab driver he summoned. There were more important things to think about. He moved the thumb drive between his fingers, gazing out the window, wondering what he would possibly be finding out in the next twenty minutes.

It took less time than expected to get to the pool. No cars in the parking lot, the main door was unlocked. It took him a few moments to compose his thoughts before he walked in.

Sherlock didn't expect to come across John at the pool, with a bomb strapped to his chest. John looked worse for wear, his hand twitching, he was listening to someone speak into his ear and saying the words himself-his voice still strong, not letting it show how scared he really was. John did not factor into any scenarios Sherlock had run in his head on the ride over.

He didn't expect to see Jim, Molly's Jim either. Moriarty at last.

He also didn't expect all the red dots at various times covering them, snipers.

He needed time to think, days even to figure out what Moriarty was getting at. A game, a warning for him to stay away, yet the obvious knowledge that Sherlock would do no such thing. It made him wonder what he truly was up against.. He wouldn't show it, but he might have been slightly worried. The thrill of the mystery was always something that drove him, but he didn't like to be outsmarted. He needed time to think, time to figure it out what Moriarty's grand scheme was

And then Moriarty was gone, and Sherlock was on John, getting that vest off of him. "All right?"

No answer.

"Are you alright?" More urgently now, as he continued to unfasten the vest.

"I'm fine." a pause, a deep breath…"I'm fine."

He vaguely could hear John saying his name, but he was too concerned with getting his friend out of the bomb vest. Friend?

"Sherlock."

"What?"

He ripped the vest away, John staggered, and crouched down. "Sherlock, he...he...I saw her."

Her?

"Sorry boys...I'm so changeable!" Moriarty was back, looking as manic as ever.

"It is a weakness with me, but to be fair to myself, it is my only weakness." He was moving closer to them, John had gotten up from his crouched position, between them and Moriarty lay the bomb vest. The red dots returned to Sherlock and John.

His heart was going fast, there were so many options as they continued to speak. Only one option stood out more than others, and that was to simply shoot the vest. He could shoot the vest, grab John, and dive into the pool. Chance of survival slim. Higher survival than being shot in the head by a sniper.

As he was pointing the gun at the vest, Jim smiled. "You don't want to do that...not yet at least. It will ruin my surprise."

"Oh, another?"

"Turn around, you two aren't the only ones who are going to die."

Sherlock didn't want to turn, it didn't seem smart to take his eyes off of Moriarty. The sound of a heavy door opening and closing let him know that someone else was entering the room. He could only imagine who it would be. He moved his body in a way where he was neither facing nor not facing the other direction, a position where his back was towards the pool instead of Moriarty.

When he saw who was brought in, it was like a punch to the gut. He could hear Moriarty laughing, he realized this was the 'her' John mentioned earlier. His mind went back, trying to figure out what he missed. Logic had dictated that she was sick, laying in bed, ignoring the world-not here. There was no reason for her to be there, not that he was aware of.

He blinked. It wasn't a trick of his eyes.

Maddie was hardly able to stand on her own, heavily leaning on the man that had brought her in. He was a good foot taller than her, muscular, and tan. His hand was gripping her upper arm so hard that from the distance Sherlock could see the whites of the man's knuckles while his fingers dug into her flesh.

She wasn't looking up, looking towards the floor instead-shame.

Naked, with the exception of underwear. Her hair was damp and curling. Cuts littered her body, what wasn't cut already had scars (he was right, her sleeves were hiding something), bruises were covering her in various shades. She was visibly shaking.

His mouth went dry. For the first time in a long time, Sherlock Holmes didn't know what to do.

"Cat got your tongue?"

He looked back at Moriarty who was grinning. John next to him had his eyes darting up and down Maddie, medic-he was sight treating her, so if they did make it out of there he would be able to give her fast treatment .

"Leave it to you, to have the interesting ones…"

"She's not involved in this." Finally able to speak.

"No? I have pictures of the two of you cuddled up that would prove otherwise."

Cuddled up? A quick thought, the only time that happened was when she was crying...her flat...windows high up, foot level with the outside world-no blinds. People could see in. Spies.

"Insignificant." Sherlock said. Moriarty didn't look impressed.

"She's kept a really...really juicy secret from you." At Moriarty's words, Maddie's head popped up. Bottom lip split, there was a bruise forming on her jaw. Even from the distance Sherlock could clearly see how red her eyes were, crying-scared.

"Doesn't matter."

"Oh you and I both know that's not true. You're about to die, it matters. It matters she's been lying all about who she is…"

He was cut off by the ringing of a phone, 'Staying Alive' echoing through the room-how fitting.

"Do you mind if I get that?" Moriarty asked.

"No-no, please you've the rest of your life."

He was soon shouting into the phone, and Sherlock was just trying to figure out what was going on. First John-who made sense, they lived together, worked together on cases, John was his blogger...made sense to take him. Maddie? Girl in the basement with a big secret? What to think of that? What was the secret? He had known she had one, he knew she was hiding stuff-but big enough for Moriarty to get involved?

"Sorry, wrong day to die…" He said, holding the phone away from his mouth. "Throw the girl in the pool, let's go."

The man who had been holding Maddie gave a rough kiss to the top of her head, "Be seein' ya real soon sweetpea." He followed this up by shoving her roughly into the pool, it was the deeper end-in her state Sherlock doubted she'd stay afloat.

The man retreated out the door he came, Moriarty's voice drifted away talking about 'making someone into shoes' if they didn't have what they said they did. As they were alone, both John and Sherlock moved to the other side of the pool where Maddie was currently sinking, the water around her tinged slightly reddish from some of the deeper cuts that had still been bleeding.

"What just happened?" John asked, Sherlock was already stripping out of his coat.

"Someone changed his mind." He passed his phone to John, "Call for help."

He jumped into the water, Maddie was panicking, she was sinking, moving around too much. It wouldn't be easy to grab her, the pool wasn't that deep-but deep enough to drown, especially for someone who was already hurt. By the time he had gotten to her, it felt like time was at a stand still.

Red hair spread out around her beaten face, her honey eyes open. He reached out for her, fingers clasping her wrist, pulling her closely against him, by the time he reached her they both hit the bottom. He used that to push off, giving them speed to head towards the surface.

He breathed in deep and coughed, water dripping from his hair and face. She was coughing hard, and holding her head into the crook of his neck, he could feel her hands grip into his shoulders. He did his best to move both himself and Maddie towards the shallower end of the pool so that John could easily grab her from him.

John was explaining the situation on the phone, Sherlock couldn't hear much of it due to Maddie's ragged breaths against his neck. She was breathing odd, the way that some people breathed when they suffered broken ribs (he should know).

What was she hiding? Did it have to do with Mycroft and her working for him? It had to...right?

"Help's on the way." John shouted out, moving to intercept them.

"Given the day and the location they should be here in the next three minutes." Sherlock stated simply, water dripping off his face. He managed to get them to the edge of the pool, moving to position her in a way where he could hand her off to John. The problem with that was: she wasn't letting go. Her small body was trembling against him, her hands gripping into him, her legs wrapped around his waist.

He didn't know what to think anymore.

"Maddie, you have to let go of Sherlock I need to have a look at your wounds." John, the voice of reason. She just clenched Sherlock tighter. "She might be going into shock."

Did what she was hiding matter that much? She shook in his arms, hurt and terrified. It couldn't be bad. If Moriarty thought it was something worth mentioning it could have been anything-but nothing bad. He was sure of that as he held her.

"Madeline, I need you to let go of me." He demanded as gently as possible, "John needs to look you over." Her hands loosened just a little bit, his head dipped down and his mouth pressed against her ear, "I promise I won't let anyone hurt you again."

She loosened her grip on him completely, and Sherlock was able to hoist her to where she was sitting on the edge of the pool. Her eyes were wide, her skin a stark white causing all the bruises and cuts that littered her body to be much more vibrant.

"C...c...can you k...keep that?" She asked, her voice was shaky-at least partially aware and not overtaken by shock-yet.

He nodded.

John was already moving to toss Sherlock's discarded coat over her to warm her up. The sirens were starting to be heard, he was right-three minutes. He was moving to get out of the pool, using the staircase when she spoke again.

"Mrs. Hudson k...knows." Her voice was faint, the breaths she had been taking were more laborious. "It's not...nothing bad, really…" He swallowed hard, if Mrs. Hudson knew whatever secret it was and still let her live at Baker Street, then it wasn't that bad.

If it wasn't that bad, why did Moriarty bring it up? Why was it important to bring her into the Game?

* * *

**End Notes:**

Why does Moriarty want Sherlock to know that Maddie is actually Madeline Stark? There is a reason, but probably not what you think!

And we won't find out his reasons for awhile still...mwhahahaha.

This chapter is a catalyst for a stronger Maddie so if you're worried she's going to be weak all the time-rest assured she will get stronger as the chapters go on.

Sherlock and Maddie are going to have an interesting friendship/relationship. At the moment it is clear to US that they have some kind of feelings for each other. It will be slow, it will not be atypical, and hopefully you'll adore them together when the time comes.

Thank you again for the reviews, the follows, the favorites-it makes this all the more satisfying to write. Sorry for the gap between updates (we had a house guest for the last seven days), hopefully the next chapter will be quicker to write/post!


	9. Chapter 8

**Fade Into You**

**Rated**: R

**Notes: **

Sorry this took so long! I sprained my elbow (I didn't even know that was a thing) and with that writing sucked for awhile. This really is a filler chapter, where it's more about emotions vs. actions. We see this chapter starting at the very end of The Avengers movie.

Enjoy, review, see you next time!

* * *

**Chapter 8:** Merging Two Worlds

_"I don't think you understand what you've started. Letting the Avengers loose on this world. They're dangerous."_

_"They surely are. And the whole world knows it. Every world knows it."_

_"Was that the point of all this, a statement?"_

_"A promise."_

With one simple touch the video feed went black, blinking off for a moment before one of the faces appeared on the screen again.

"Mr. Holmes, I think I've made my point-I'd hate to have to go through all of that again."

"You made yourself quite clear." The well dressed Mr. Holmes stated, "This is unrelated."

"Well? I got places to be, there is a city that needs to be rebuilt, I have men dead."

"It seems while we were watching New York and the movements of your...Avengers, something went by our security here."

Well, that was worrisome.

"Another threat?"

"Not a threat for you, it remains on my watch. This is about Starks daughter."

Of course.

"Is it bad?"

"I think, it would be in our best interest to alert him that she is currently in the hospital recovering from extensive torture."

"Connor?"

"Slipped through the cracks, seems to have been recruited by someone over here that has a vendetta for my brother."

"I thought she would be safe living there?"

"Yes well…"

"I thought we agreed she would be watched constantly, living there was the best choice since you're already keeping tabs on your brother-need I remind you how fucking unsettling that is?"

The man on the screen just gave him an unimpressed look, and Fury smiled-truly the only man in the world who seemed fine to go against him. When the man didn't speak, Fury continued on.

"How bad?"

"She's been in the hospital for the last three days, she was only captive a little over 24 hours. Superficial cuts and bruising, it looks like some of the...abuse caused some internal bleeding, as well as three of her ribs to be broken. She really isn't coherent yet."

He liked the kid, she was a hard worker, and smart. A good tool for SHIELD and could be used for leeway with Stark if need be. Unfortunately there was always an angle, that's just how it worked. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Tell me then, how did you come across her if you didn't even realize she was missing in the first place?"

"My brother found her."

"Your brother sure is coming up a lot in this conversation, I don't know how I feel about that. And if I don't know how I feel about that, how do you think Stark is going to take this? Especially after we didn't tell him about the jail break? Which I do believe was YOUR call."

"I believe it was a joint call between Agent Coulson and myself."

"Well Stark is under the belief that Agent Coulson is deceased so I'm pretty sure all of the blame is going to be placed upon you."

There was a beat of silence between the two of them, he wondered how he was going to bring this up to Stark. Stark who just started to play nicely. It was going to be just a wonderful fucking conversation, that's what it was going to be.

"Does he know? Your brother? He seems to be getting quite close to her, playing hero after all. Does he know who she is?"

"His landlady filled him in, what she didn't know he's been searching for online. He's been at the hospital staying with her, he wants answers."

"Well he'll get his damn answers soon enough, I'm sure Stark will run to her the moment he finds out...this threat of yours...anything we need to worry about?"

"If it was I would have involved you, it is a problem in house, I wouldn't worry about it."

"I hope you learn from your mistakes, doesn't matter if it's one of your in house problems or something else-she's always in danger for being his daughter...you agreed to watch in exchange for help with Budapest."

"I'm aware. I'll see to it the error in our ways doesn't happen again."

"Good. Now I have to go inform him of that error. I would expect you'll be getting a visit soon."

"I'm aware."

And with that the screen went black again. He sighed, nothing could ever be easy. Save the world, get thrown into some other shit.

* * *

People owed him favors. He had cashed one of them in at the hospital, the nurses, the staff in general did not bother him as he sat by Maddie's side. He would only leave if John took his place. He argued with John that he wasn't staying because he was worried for her, but it was because the moment she woke up he wanted to find out why she kept it from him.

John argued it was simple, she wanted to get away from her past and from having a world famous dad. It was logical, but Sherlock couldn't help but be hurt from being lied to.

Sure he lied a lot as well, but that wasn't the point.

After they had handed her off to the paramedics, Sherlock had went straight to Mrs. Hudson. He had been soaking wet, pounding on her door at two in the morning-demanding answers. The answers boggled him.

Madeline O'Brien was actually Madeline Stark, the only heir to Tony Stark-Iron Man. Of course, after finding that out he had no idea why Moriarty had wanted it out in the open. That was a mystery that would be saved for another day, for when she was awake. Instead Sherlock focused on Maddie-finding out everything and anything about her.

He spent three days by her bedside, busy on his laptop, looking at old news articles, finding videos. A lot of information was deleted, removed webpages, or videos that were not able to be viewed-it was clear that someone (either her or her genius father) went to the trouble of having information on her eradicated.

What he came away with after three days of learning and searching was:

She was not only smart, but a genius as well. She could learn and retain knowledge just as well as her father, but tended to skew herself towards language, and simple subjects (for whatever reason he didn't know why).

Maddie was raised by her mother who had indeed succumbed to cancer when Maddie was only fourteen. In the span of the year after that she was left with her step father, Connor who had been in her life since her birth (and who she thought to be her birth father). He had tortured and raped her on her fifteenth birthday. Apparently he "snapped".

As a child she would play piano around the united states, where Connor had a rather large following as a semi-famous reverend. There was one video online (that took some searching for) where she was a little red headed ten year old playing the piano as Connor praised Jesus in front of a large crowd in Alabama. She was good.

Her years with her real father, Tony Stark were more or less hard to find out about. Tony kept her out of the limelight, but occasionally in paparazzi photos, or in articles you would see glimpses of her, or he would talk about being a father fondly.

He had been making news again the last few days, New York had been under attack. His face, along with the faces of several others had flashed across the muted TV screen in the hospital room constantly.

Sherlock didn't understand why she lied to HIM, why he couldn't figure that out from the very beginning. He knew she was hiding something, but he thought it was...well he didn't know what it was-he always cast the thought over it as insignificant. She wasn't insignificant though...far from it.

He watched her sleep, shutting his laptop with a sigh. She had been briefly lucid earlier that day, but the nurse had been in there with them-and while he had favors owed to him, it didn't extend to letting him interrogate a woman who was just waking after torture. They told him she should wake up though...soon.

It was all so boring, yet he couldn't tear himself away.

"Nothing yet?"

John. He walked into the room, looking a little worse for wear. He didn't sleep much the night before apparently.

"Nothing since this morning." He explained curtly as John took his seat on the opposite side of her. She wasn't hooked up to many machines, a heart monitor was clasped onto one of her fingers, an IV giving her fluids and pain medication stuck in the back of her hand. Other tubes ran under her blankets, but he didn't inquire as to what THOSE did. John however, every time he walked in and sat with her would look over her chart, make a note to check every single tube, every connection, make sure her bandages were clean.

"They've been backing away on the medications a bit, so she's more likely to wake up." John told him, looking at her chart that was placed on the end of her bed. "Have you figured it out yet?"

A question he was asking him daily...hourly sometimes.

"No. There was no reason for Moriarty to bring who she really is to my attention." A sigh, frustrating. "At this point, I feel like that was just part of a game. He thinks I care about her."

"You do."

"Caring is a weakness John."

John didn't look convinced at that.

"And...her step father?"

Sherlock frowned at the mention of him, the image of Connor tightly holding her tortured body, throwing her roughly into the water was still burned into his mind. "A controllable soldier. He'll do what Moriarty wants as long as Moriarty gives her to him for awhile. Moriarty get's to hurt someone he thinks I care about without getting his hands dirty."

John nodded, but remained quite.

They both sat in silence, both watching her, listening to the sounds of the hospital.

Sherlock couldn't help but wonder why he still cared for her, or even why John could very well be considered his friend. Despite how hard he tried, he couldn't help but be fond of them. They balanced him out in a way he didn't know he needed. The thought of losing one or both of them...hurt.

Going from seeing John strapped to a bomb, to Maddie broken and battered...it hurt.

_"I'll burn the heart out of you"_

_"I've been reliably informed that I do not have one."_

_"But we both know that's not quite true…"_

* * *

When he found out he had a daughter, he didn't know what to do. He didn't think he would be a very good father, he was a playboy, he was selfish (he could fully admit to that), and he was just too busy running Stark Industries. He didn't want to be the kind of dad that his own father was, so he had tried-he really tried his hardest.

Maybe too hard sometimes. Maybe too little. There was no real learning curve with being a parent, especially one who came into the parenting scene fifteen years too late. They both learned though, he and Mads. She didn't know what a true loving father was, and he didn't know what it was like to have someone truly depend on you. Sure a lot of people depended on his company, on Iron Man, even Pepper depended on him-but having Mads was different. He couldn't check out.

The bad thing was...he WAS Iron Man. When she came to live with him he had just built his first suit, people did depend on him. She understood. She was bright, she was not selfish (trait from her mother), she was deeply understanding of him and other people. She knew he had work to do, knew he'd get holed up in his workshop, she understood he had to take risks for the greater good (or maybe sometimes just to show off).

Still, it was hard. They had their moments, her going off screaming because of one little comment about her not liking engineering, him in a shouting match with her for accepting an offer to work with SHIELD without consulting him. He could understand why she thought it was better for her to go and try to live her own life. He didn't want to understand, but he did.

He however, did not understand her signature on a piece of paper that stated she didn't want him to know that her stepfather had broken out of jail. He was a superhero, he should have been the first one she told. Instead she opted to sign away letting him know. He wasn't a stupid man, he knew SHIELD put the pen in her hand, he knew if she thought he was busy she wouldn't want to bother him.

What made it worse was by the time Nick Fury showed up, he was half drunk on wine after celebrating being alive with Pepper and hanging plastic all over Stark tower to truly understand what was going on. Actually, the curse of the genius had struck-he fully well (even half drunk) understood what was going on-he just didn't want to believe it. If he had believed it then it meant that his little girl was hurt, and she didn't ask for his help in the first place...before the hurt.

The only thing stopping him from crawling into his suit and flying across the ocean to be by her side was the fact that Fury already made sure the Stark jet was prepped and ready for take off and that Pepper was silently crying, she wanted to see Mads too.

Pepper had already begun packing on the lower and less damaged personal level of Stark tower. Tony was walking Fury out.

"If I find him I will kill him." Tony told Fury, a warning that he would follow through with. "If I see him walk back into a courtroom I will kill him."

"Orders for anyone are to shoot on sight."

"I just don't understand why...why I didn't just go with my gut before and take him out."

"Stark, don't do that to yourself. You were busy trying to connect with a deeply wounded daughter, he went through the system just like anyone else." Fury sighed, "Had we known this was a possible outcome we wouldn't have let him continue to exist."

Tony just nodded, he was itching to leave. He needed to leave, to be with her.

"You and I." Fury started, "Know that she is aware you love her. She also knows what's best for the greater good. Had she requested you to come be by her side and protect her, all of Manhattan would have been obliterated, hell we might still have aliens coming to enslave us. She is a good member of SHIELD, she'd make an even better active agent…"

"Over my dead body."

Both men were silent for a moment, standing near the door-plastic sheets billowing in the wind. Only speaking again once Pepper's heels clicked on the floor, signaling her approach. "I wish the two of you a good trip, give her my regards."

He left, as swiftly as he came. Tony wasn't quite sure what to say or do, the first time it had happened (it shouldn't have happened again, he should have been there dammit!) he didn't have as many emotional ties to her, but after the years had went by he found a deep growing love and admiration towards his daughter, and the hurt was worse. Pepper put her hand on his shoulder, she had packed quickly, one single suitcase for them to share, and a garment bag folded over her other arm. Light to pack, they were both well aware they could easily buy what was needed.

"Let's go."

* * *

"Oh thank God she's waking up when he's not here." John's voice. He sounded tired, but good.

Her vision was blurry but she at least knew he was there with her.

Mouth was dry.

She herself felt blurry. Pain medication?

Wait...why would she be on pain medication…?

It hit her like a ton of bricks, Connor torturing her, John had been there, then Sherlock dragged her out of a pool.

"Heart rate is going up." A voice she didn't know.

"Maddie, calm down you're okay-you're safe. In a hospital…" John again. She felt something warm on her shoulder, his hand. She blinked her eyes, vision finally coming back to her. There he was, bags under his eyes, plaid button up on, smiling. Trying to be reassuring. "Heart rate is going back down…" He said to whoever else was in the room, she didn't want to look at that person. Just at John, watching him look her over. His hand went to her forehead. "I'm so happy you're awake, been getting dreadfully bored."

"I'll let the her doctor know she's awake so he can look her over, but everything looks fine…"

There was a quiet moment, she was busy looking around now that it was just John and her. She was trying to flex everything to make sure her body was still working. Fingers worked, toes looked to be twitching under the blanket, all seemed well. Last time she had woke up like this, doctors had been swarming around her endlessly, either she wasn't hurt as badly or they trusted John's skills to look after her instead of overwhelming her with pokes and prods.

"Ho...how long?" Scratchy voice, felt like cotton was stuffed down her throat, it made her want a soda. Anytime she had a sore throat she wanted soda, not to mention the comfort of it in general.

"Little over three or so days" He told her, "You had a bit of internal bleeding, so it was mostly the blood loss that kept you down."

She nodded. That sucked. It all sucked. Just when life was getting good. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of something bright. Her head turned to look fully, and was surprised to see a great deal of flowers and get well cards. "Wh...who?"

He caught her gaze, and gave a soft chuckle. "Mrs. Hudson, myself, Molly too-the yellow roses are from her. She's been dreadfully worried, I didn't know the two of you had gotten so close."

"S...sarah."

"Yes, I do suppose I've been busy with her. I'm sorry about that."

She shook her head, "Don't b...be."

"I feel like I need to warn you, Sherlock could come round at any time and...well let's just say he has some questions."

Oh yeah, they probably knew now. It was like a dam breaking after John told her Sherlock would be around with questions. He knew, and she didn't want him to know. Hell, she didn't want him or John to see her like that, ever. Her face felt hot and she could feel her eyes start to water.

"Hey, hey there Maddie. It's not a big deal, you know him he wants to understand everything-that's all. Moreso now that Moriarty involved you in his sick little game." John had moved to sit on the edge of her bed, careful to avoid her and any tubes running out of her. From her vision she could only see a minimal amount of tubes but she could feel others under the blankets. She swallowed hard.

"Not mad?"

"I think Sherlock is frustrated that he doesn't understand how you and your stepfather fit into Moriarty's plan. Not mad though."

"You?"

He frowned, clearly thinking. "Maddie, I couldn't be mad over something like this. Your past is your own business, just like mine is my own business. I can understand why maybe you might want your own life away from your past, doesn't mean I don't wish you could have told me."

She was about to tell him about how hard it was to lie when her doctor came in, along with a nurse. Seemed like their time was up and she needed to be looked over and given an exam now that she was awake for a few minutes. John placed a soft kiss to the top of her head, letting her know that she still was in fact a sister to him. He promised he'd be back later, warned her again about Sherlock and disappeared out of the room. Leaving her surrounded by people she didn't know, poking and prodding places that hurt.

Fun.

* * *

"How is she?"

John back tracked at the voice, looking over the figure sitting near Maddie's room door with a bit of shock. Amongst all the hospital flair, the paging over the intercoms, the chill in the air, the man looked...off. Then again, he always looked off.

"Her doctors are in with her now Mycroft, what are you doing here?"

The elder Holmes gave a nod towards her door, "Yes, they told me they would be seeing to her shortly, that I could go in after."

"They're making sure everything is healing properly."

"How is she...I heard her voice a bit, does she seem...okay?"

John didn't know what to say or think after that, Mycroft showing concern? Perhaps it wasn't true concern, but there was something there. "For what she just experienced, she's not sobbing in the corner. Seemed more concerned about what Sherlock and myself thought about her now."

"Ah yes, now that you know she is truly Miss. Stark. And how do you feel about that?"

"I don't think it's a big deal, not that it is any of your concern."

Mycroft nodded, his hands stacked on the end of his umbrella. "Fair enough."

"Why are you here anyway, Sherlock said she worked for you but I don't take you the type to show up at employees hospital bedsides"

"While you and Sherlock were off gallivanting around…"

"Excuse me but we were also doing something for you...or did you forget about the missile plans?"

Mycroft gave him a look, and John didn't see the point in continuing to interrupt the man.

"While you and my brother were...working, New York City was under attack as were members of the government agency which young Miss. Stark works for."

"Christ."

"Yes, I didn't think you'd be paying attention to the news. Although I'm surprised my brother didn't mention it-considering all the research he's doing right now."

"I told him I didn't want to know, I'd find out her past from herself."

"Honor will only get you so far Dr. Watson. Regardless, her agency lost a lot of good people the last few days, so there is only more bad news for her."

"You can't go in there and tell her about that right now…" John started.

"I am not as cold as you or my brother seem to think I am. I'm simply here to make sure she is well, and to warn her that her father will be here in a few hours."

"Oh."

"Yes...'oh'."

* * *

_She's awake, you're only going to have this one chance to have her open up to you-if you are too brash she'll close herself up_. -**JW**

_Also your Brother is with her right now._ -**JW**

Sherlock had went home for a shower, to change his clothes, to possibly re-watch one of the videos of a younger Maddie playing piano in front of a large crowd. He enjoyed showers, they gave him time to think without distraction. The act of cleaning oneself wasn't a distraction, it was routine. Get wet, pour shampoo in your hair, lather, rinse...so on. He liked the water scalding, leaving red splotches against his alabaster skin. He was nearly ready to rinse off the last of a sandalwood smelling soap when his phone chirped. Once, then again. Two text messages.

He rinsed faster than he had planned too, toweled his hair leaving it wild, and wrapped the dark towel around his still dripping hips. John. She was awake. Both pleasant and not pleasant news. It meant he could interrogate her on what had happened, on why she had kept her past from him, but it also meant he would be able to see her awake...and not just laying there looking bruised and defeated.

He wanted to kill the man that had did that to her, her stepfather according to records. He'd done it before, he did it again, and Sherlock would kill him if he saw him. It made him very angry, more angry than he should have been.

The sort of emotion that made him stand there leaning against the bathroom sink wondering what his best approach was with Maddie because he didn't want her to close up against him. The kind of emotion that made him disgusted at himself for caring, it gave him no advantage. None. Yet there he was, Mrs. Hudson, John, Maddie…

Something like this, caring as he did could be the end of him…

Forty minutes had went by before he had arrived at the hospital. It felt different this time around. Every other time the last few days he had been coming to sit next to her while she was unconscious. This time he knew she was awake, ready for questions. His strides were remarkably slower than they normally would have been on the quest for information. Her floor wasn't as busy as it was during the morning hours. As the evening approached the staff was changing shifts, visitors were leaving. John was no where in sight, and just as he was approaching her door Mycroft walked out of it, leaning on his umbrella ever so slightly.

"Ah, I was wondering how long it would take you to be back."

"And you were?"

"She is my employee after all."

Sherlock didn't look impressed by that, it still annoyed him that she worked for Mycroft. Even if you could say it was only due to her living in London. "Did you tell her?"

"Yes, she is aware of the incident in New York. She's also aware that some people were lost, she may not be an active field agent but she did have friends that were killed." Mycroft's tone was quieter, making Sherlock wonder if someone Mycroft was friends (well as friendly as Mycroft could be) with had died as well.

"How did she take it?"

"Better than you may think. Are you here to interrogate her?"

"I just want to know why."

"Be careful brother, this caring business isn't good for you." Mycroft sighed.

They were quiet for a few moments, standing near but not together. Both staring at the clock on the wall above the nurses station slowly ticking away.

Mycroft was the one to continue, "Unfortunately what I feared about putting her in Baker Street has come true. You two have become entangled and not for the better…"

"Entangled, I think not."

"She was kidnapped because of whatever relationship you two have, but also because someone found out who she is. I thought you would have been smart and simply ignored the girl." Mycroft shifted his weight, making Sherlock aware he was probably off his diet again. "The two of you on your own have slightly...dangerous lives, yours because you instigate it and hers because of her father. When you add it together it's a disaster."

"John was also kidnapped."

"Yes another person you care about. I see how that's working out for you…take my advice, for once-"

"I think I've taken your advice enough."

Mycroft seemed taken aback, but there was something there in his eyes-pleased. At least some little bit of him was pleased.

"Very well then, I'll leave you to her."

And that was that.

* * *

Her heart hurt. It was a heavy ache that made her entire chest feel like it was collapsing. She was biting her tongue to avoid falling into deep sobs. Deep sobbing wouldn't solve anything and it would most certainly hurt considering all of her injuries. Mycroft was kind enough to inform her on the attack on New York, he didn't say it directly but she knew members of SHIELD had died. He wouldn't tell her who, and that was concerning.

Maddie was at that place where emotionally she didn't think she could take another thing, but at the same time was starting to shut down. Sherlock walked in when she wanted to be interrogated the least. He looked as handsome as always, and all she could think about was how he had not only seen her scars, her new injuries, but had seen it all while she was nude with the exception of the puppy panties. She wasn't sure if she should just laugh in defeat or cry. She really didn't feel up to doing either.

"How are you feeling?"

John must have told him to go easy on her. She would rather have it like a band-aid, rip it off. She looked down to her hands in her lap, one had an IV, both were bruised. Apparently in the torment, or maybe in trying to get out of her shackles she had tore her thumbnail off. Completely. It was bandaged, but she knew what had happened to it. After John had left her and the doctors surrounded her she was given a run down of her injuries. She didn't need a run down to know it had hurt.

"I've had worse."

It was true, she did have worse. Last time she was raped. Although this time there was the lingering fear that Connor was still out there with a criminal mastermind, so emotionally this time around it worse she figured.

"Doesn't make it any easier." He told her softly. She looked up to see him dropping into the chair next to her bed. He looked tired.

"No, it doesn't."

And then the silence, had it not been for the unasked question hanging in the air it would have been a comfortable silence. She watched him, and he watched her now-his eyes ran across every bruise or bandage he could see while hers just watched him, his jaw clenched and unclenched, his eyes had dark circles under them, he looked a little gaunt.

Finally, he spoke.

"Why?"

It wasn't angry, nor was it as intense as she had been expecting. It was just a soft question, and that made it harder. At least if he was angry or intense, she could lash back with her own emotions. His softness kept her own emotions just simmering. Was this John's doing, a warning to Sherlock about going easy on her? Or was Sherlock doing this of his own accord? She couldn't be sure.

"Why what? Why did I pretend not to really be me or why did Jim decided to involve me in your game?"

"Both."

Maddie sighed, she wanted to go back to bed-but at the same time the idea of voluntary sleep was scary. She wondered if this would mean she would have to go back on her sleeping meds, her anxiety meds, just when she was really feeling good about everything too…

"I didn't exactly lie about myself. I just...omitted, which yeah is lying-but...I just, wanted to be someone other than the preachers daughter, other than Iron Man's daughter. I wanted to leave it all behind and start anew."

She frowned at that, it sounded so silly now. She had been so scared for everyone to find out who she was. It was stupid.

"When I finally started to make a life for me here, a routine, my own world...it was just nice. Yet, I suppose good doesn't last…"

If she had been talking to John, he would have said something about not giving up hope. She was talking to Sherlock though, so he just nodded-there wasn't any false ideology with him. Logically good really didn't last, that was life. You have good months or years, and then bad things happen.

"Why he wanted to spill the beans to you is truly beyond me. I think he might just be a little crazy…" He did look crazy, she wondered how she didn't notice it in the pictures Molly shared of "Jim from IT".

"I suppose he thought we were together and that it would cause strife."

She nodded at that, chewing on the inside of her lip. Her hand was itchy and she was trying to avoid incessantly scratching at where the IV was. It did make sense, he had saw them cuddled up via some really creepy peeping tom style spying and probably assumed that putting her big "lie" out in the open would upset their balance, or whatever. He was crazy. She didn't like dealing with crazy.

"Not that it has."

She quickly glanced over to him at that, he had his thinking look on. Not the 'thinking so hard I don't know if you're in the room' look, but one where he was talk-thinking it out. "I mean to say that I understand why you decided to do it. Going through what you went through, and then having a father who...well is very famous I'm sure is hard."

Her mouth went dry. Don't cry just because he's being nice to you. Sherlock by default wasn't always nice and she was waiting for the statement that would make her roll her eyes.

It didn't come.

Instead he touched her hand, the one with the bandage on her thumb, without the IV. His fingers moved over the back of her knuckles. Her heart was hurting again. His fingers were cold on her hand, but it felt nice. She wanted to cry. Wanted to curl up into him and just sob for all she was worth. It wasn't something she was accustomed to. It took her years before she felt like she could do that with her Dad or even sometimes Pepper-but here she was with Sherlock.

She was very fond of him, but what did that even mean?

Even though she was trying not to, big fat tears were dropping down her face. She moved her hand to where her fingers were lacing through his. It felt nice. Simple in her ever growing complex world.

"You have the hands of a pianist."

"You found videos of me playing didn't you?" It didn't take a genius to figure that one out.

"You are quite talented."

"Natural I suppose, music came easy to me-just like languages. Most things do, but I like to focus on those areas."

"Not engineering?"

"My Dad tried his hardest to get me interested in it. I learned some, considering you know who I am now, who my Dad is I won't lie, I'm smart enough to figure it out. Building robots and computers and all of that...but it just doesn't interest me." She gave a sigh, she was starting to get tired, but was trying to fight against it.

"Math."

"Excuse me?"

"My mother, she's very smart with mathematics-I just could never see the point...always so boring...at least when you're reading it out of a textbook."

She blinked, it was odd-they had talked, a lot before, but usually superficial-now here he was telling her about his mother? Who up until that point had never been mentioned before. It was very confusing. Was he just being overly nice because of warnings passed onto him about her well-being? Was he being like this because he knew who she was now, no secret hanging in the air?

"Sherlock?"

He made a noise, looking up at her (he had been overly focused on looking at their hands together).

"Why are you being so...kind?" Perhaps a rude question to ask, but honestly she didn't want to sit and go over a hundred different reasons for it in her tired head.

"I really don't know. I've been waiting for days for you to wake up so that I could ask you questions...yet now that you're awake I'm just...happy."

She nodded, "That makes sense, if it were John you'd probably feel the same way."

"Perhaps."

And then they were quiet, she tried to turn off her brain-she didn't want to think. She just wanted to zone out and pretend like a bandage on her back wasn't itching horribly. Wanted to pretend like she wasn't hurt again. She wondered when she'd break. She was feeling fine then, with Sherlock holding her hand, but she knew that she wouldn't be able to hold it together forever.

His hand felt nice.

"I hope I'm not interrupting something. Actually, I kind of do."

Her heart felt like it did a backflip and then landed on cement. Her head snapped up, her hand gripped tighter on Sherlock's. She had been so engrossed with her 'not thinking' that she didn't even hear someone slip in.

He looked worse for wear too, his eyes were looking over her taking in every wound he could see. The heartbreak was written on his face. Sherlock had sat to attention but didn't stand up, he didn't let go of her hand but that may have been because she was gripping him so hard.

Standing at the foot of her hospital bed the man wasn't dressed to impress, yet still managed to be an imposing figure. It was mostly due to the circular blue illumination that shone through the black fabric of his shirt.

It was quiet, no one was saying anything. They were all just looking at each other. She hadn't seen him for months, but the pain in her heart was growing even bigger than it had been. Oh how she had missed him.

He moved around the bed, to the side opposite of Sherlock. The moment his hand reached to touch her hair was the moment she broke. At least a little bit, she made a noise that didn't even sound human, a sob that wasn't a sob since sobbing would hurt her side even with the painkillers. Her hand gently broke away from Sherlock's.

"Dad." She breathed out, reaching for him. And he reached back, in an instant everything that had happened really was real. From the attack he just fought against in New York to her torture. It was real. It was sad. She buried her head in the crook of his neck, she felt the cold metal in his chest against hers, his hand on the back of her head holding her close.

"We gotta stop meeting like this kiddo."

* * *

**End Notes:**

While I am trying so very hard to keep Sherlock in character, this chapter really was his breaking point. We're not going to see him suddenly in love, we're not going to see him and Maddie date anytime soon, but there is a fondness...one that he is accepting.

We're going to start to see more of a crossover between Marvel and Sherlock, it's never going to be so big that it get's in the way of the real story at hand, but we're looking to have some fun with Tony vs. Sherlock.

Hoping to have the next chapter up really soon. Thanks for reading!


End file.
